sniper-at-the-gates-of-heaven:
Guam: Where the US Military Is Revered and Reviled
Speaking alongside Camacho is his colleague, human rights lawyer Julian Aguon, who adds, “Militarism is normalized on Guam. It’s part of our meat and drink. It’s a protein we have to work very hard to break down.”
The two lawyers pivot back and forth reciting a litany of adverse impacts, from a military housing allowance they say makes housing unaffordable for non-military residents to the military discounts for everything from gasoline and milk to baby formula and toilet paper.
Camacho says military service is incentivized to the point that it encroaches on identity. “You have this culture on Guam where everyone is very proud of being Chamorro but on the other hand you have this constant exposure to the military and militarization… It’s almost part of the narrative on Guam: all these great benefits from being in the military.”
Aguon adds, “In many young people’s minds the military service is the tried and true road to wealth and well-being and so they quickly get with the program.” With the military dangling financial incentives before Guam’s people, he says, it drives parents to encourage their kids to enlist.
“What’s happening now is but one chapter in a long and complicated book about the breaking of a people,” Aguon says, adding that militarization and colonization are inseparable.
this is an example of what i’m talking about. war as industry.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 