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John Grant's "Questioning the Army Experience Center"

Written by: Tom Alba on Sep 13, 2009 11:33 AM EDT

Linked to groups: Northeast Philadelphia for Democracy, Upper Bucks for Democracy, Asheville Democracy for America, Local Politics Matter, Philly for Change

Questioning the Army Experience Center

Photos & report by John Grant, Veterans For Peace Chapter 31

People came from all over on Saturday, September 12th to express their disgust with the United States Army's $12 million experimental video-game recruitment center at the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia. At 11:30 AM, over 150 people from all over the east coast began collecting at the busy intersection of Knights and Woodhaven Roads where speakers like writer Chris Hedges spoke about the insidious momentum of war. At 2 PM, led by a contingent of anti-war veterans, the spirited group marched down Knights Road and into the Red Entrance of the Mall. They loudly marched past the Dave & Busters game emporium right up to the entrance of the Army Experience Center, which was protected by a phalanx of Philadelphia police. The marchers and their shouts of "War is not a game!" and "Close it down!" filled the Mall, as the cops stood stern-faced, some looking pained as if they wished they were somewhere else, as if their personal politics and their jobs might be in conflict. Inside the Army Experience Center, about 30 members of the right-wing veterans group A Gathering Of Eagles stood behind the glass panels smirking and mugging for protesters' cameras.

Earlier in the day, my wife Lou Ann and I wandered up to the entrance of the AEC to see what was going on. The active-duty commander of the center told us the center was closed for the day due to a 9/11 commemoration event with members of A Gathering Of Eagles. The Eagles all featured their usual denim jackets and motorcycle regalia with POW-MIA patches and other obligatory, right-wing identity symbols. I asked if, as a veteran, I could join the commemoration event, since I also felt obliged to honor the sacrifices of that day. "No!" I was told firmly. "OK," I said to the young commander. "How about if we Veterans For Peace work out with you a time when we can come to the AEC and have our own commemoration event with you involving people who have died in wars." "No!" he said, this time a bit rudely. At that point Lou Ann asked him why he was being so blatantly selective in the kinds of veterans he allowed into his establishment. At this point, he abruptly walked away. For the record, in May the Philly VFP chapter formally requested permission to set up a modest respectful table for presenting alternative views to the AEC. We have heard nothing concerning that request.

A tall, bearded Eagle remained at the entrance, and we began to make cordial conversation with him. He was from North Carolina so we exchanged pleasantries on that fine state, since we had just returned from a week on Okracoke Island. Lou Ann knew the area he was from, so it was a polite exchange. That is, until Lou Ann asked him if he thought the polarization between left and right in America was something that could be surmounted -- or was it just a case of war. "It's not left or right," the man said. "It's Democrat-Republican, and the Democrats have been taken over by Communists. They're Marxist-Leninists." This was more than we expected. Since we had both voted for Obama, we were Democrats, but we both now felt for one reason or another Obama was in cahoots with militarists like this Eagle when it came to the issue of Afghanistan.

"That's simply absurd," I told him.

"I won't talk about it," he said and stepped away.

The extent of blindered and willful ignorance of this otherwise polite guy was staggering. What was so sobering was that this sort of willful ignorance symbolized for me the incredible cultural momentum from eight years of post-9/11 vengeance-rooted military mobilization, a national state of mind that has involved two major invasions and follow-up occupations and a runaway regime of secrecy, illegal surveillance, detention and torture. It was all in this guy's block-headed assumptions about "communists" in the woodpile. We certainly had our work cut out for us. How does one go about organizing a reasonable and decent society when this is the kind of response a tax-paying citizen encounters when he has the temerity to ask just what the Hell is going on and why are we choosing to hose more gasoline on the fire we kicked up in Afghanistan/Pakistan? I can hear the smarmy Gathering Of Eagle chuckle and response to this question: What about Osama bin Laden? OK, what about him? All this stuff needs to be discussed afresh.

Every one who came out to march on Saturday against the Army Experience Center realized, as an institution, it is a fundamental adjunct of our unquestioned and unquestionable Afghanistan policy. If you choose to make war and you choose to expand the violence, you need young men and women to hump the rugged terrain of Afghanistan and to drive the dangerous roadways of Afghanistan and to engage the fierce Pashtun Taliban fighters so infuriated at the US military occupation of their homeland. There is so much screwed up about our presence in Afghanistan it's hard to know where to start. And I won't even try here. Suffice it to say, it is fundamentally screwed up thanks to the corrupt Bush years and, now, the insidious momentum of war on both sides of the battle. It can go no where but from bad to worse.

As one of the march signs pointed out, from January to July of this year, there were more suicides among soldiers than there were combat deaths. Post Traumatic Stress is at crisis levels -- to the point the military is now featuring "resilience training" to toughed up our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. This kind of psychological counseling is notoriously good for one thing: getting young men and women to buck up and get back on the line. No one is asking the real questions such as Why the Hell are we recruiting young kids and sending them into the war in Afghanistan at all? As many vets will submit, one of the causes of PTSD is a sense of not understanding what the mission is or slowly coming to the realization the stated mission is dishonest and the real deal is something much more insidious.

We can only speculate why the US Army picked the Franklin Mills Mall for its experiment in high-tech youth entrapment. Might it have something to do with the working class demographics of the Northeast Philadelphia and the dismal economic climate for jobs and careers facing young kids graduating from high school? The rumor spread during the march that the Army had decided not to invest in centers like the AEC in malls across America. One can only hope, its Gathering Of Eagles support aside, that the Army sees what a morally dubious enterprise the AEC really is.

In the end, the Philadelphia Police Civil Affairs Unit arrested a handful of demonstrators who refused to leave the mall after a robust period of loud questioning. Once everyone had been swept out of the Mall, its Red Entrance was protected by the phalanx of Philly cops. The AEC and the Mall were safe again. All the gravely serious questions this motley gathering of angry citizens still harbored had been deflected. Thanks to all the armed personnel, the Mall was returned to its commercial purpose distributing the bread & circus that keeps our citizens subdued. Dave & Busters and Victoria's Secret were safe.

But Afghanistan will not go away, and we can all be assured more kids recruited out of cynical places like the AEC will die there.

Above left: The marchers gather at Woodhaven and Knights Roads. Above right: writer Chris Hedges speaks next to Gold Star Mother Celeste Zappala, whose son Sherwood was killed in Iraq.

Below Left: Philadelphia cops protect the Army Experience Center from all the rowdy citizens asking uncomfortable questions while inside members of A Gathering Of Eagles grin and mug at marchers behind the glass panels. They were at the AEC to commemorate 9/11. Right: one of the marchers who would not yield and stop asking questions is arrested and rushed out a back door by Civil Affairs officers.