God Forgives, Brothers Don’t: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood

This searing deep dive from journalist Craven (Our Veterans) spotlights a brutal strain of masculinity inculcated by America’s military education establishment. Surveying the histories of the five service academies, particularly West Point, along with several private military schools, he pegs the institutions as having promoted an aggressive, controlling masculine ideal that has bled outward into American society for centuries. Starting with the tenure of Sylvanus Thayer, the authoritarian “godfather” of West Point, Craven traces how military education “breeds loyalty, teaches obedience, and constructs violence” through dehumanizing hazing methods. He also notes that periodic attempts at reform, which began as early as the 1900 hazing death of West Point cadet Oscar Booz, have failed to bring about lasting change. Most strikingly, he highlights ancillary institutions that have promoted the military school ethos to the rest of society, including the Boy Scouts and ROTC fraternities, and traces the ways in which, even as military schools’ profile improved in the latter 20th century as they garnered a reputation for reforming difficult students, they subjected Black and female cadets to ostracization and harassment. The schools also were crucibles of right-wing thought, he notes, pointing in particular to the deep penetration of evangelical Christianity into the Air Force Academy. It amounts to a unique and vital perspective on America’s masculinity crisis. (May)