Waking up in the morning
at about 6:30 pm for school, picking my clothes out, eating something random
for breakfast, saying goodbye to my parents for the morning; I never thought
that would change so drastically by simply signing a dotted line one day.
Suddenly that became waking up at 0445, putting on a uniform, eating one of
three choices for breakfast, and giving one last look at the baby Jesus in my
wallet for the day. When I enlisted in the military I knew the types of things I
would have to go through but it was so sudden when I was dropped into a total
institution called Army Basic Combat Training. I knew about socialization and
how it never stops in a person’s life, slowly building who you are, but never
did I think before my interest in the military that I would go through
resocialization.
As we grow up we slowly get attributes added to our personality by going through socialization through all the social experiences that we go through in our lives. The country we grow up in, the family that raises us, the friends we become close to; these things all develop us over time in some way or another. But what happens when everything suddenly gets taken away and you don't have your normal encounters. Everything you do is controlled and watched. You wake up at a given time, you eat what you are told to eat, and you do what you are told to do; nothing more and nothing less. Going through resocialization where you are forced to become something or someone else by being restricted in all you do. This happens in total institutions whereas I said the environment is all controlled and you have little to no freedom. This happens in prisons, nursing homes, mental hospitals or military training sites. That is the exact purpose in basic training, to change you from a civilian into a soldier.
As we grow up we slowly get attributes added to our personality by going through socialization through all the social experiences that we go through in our lives. The country we grow up in, the family that raises us, the friends we become close to; these things all develop us over time in some way or another. But what happens when everything suddenly gets taken away and you don't have your normal encounters. Everything you do is controlled and watched. You wake up at a given time, you eat what you are told to eat, and you do what you are told to do; nothing more and nothing less. Going through resocialization where you are forced to become something or someone else by being restricted in all you do. This happens in total institutions whereas I said the environment is all controlled and you have little to no freedom. This happens in prisons, nursing homes, mental hospitals or military training sites. That is the exact purpose in basic training, to change you from a civilian into a soldier.
This
environment of yelling and punishment forces you to change the way you act and
develop yourself different very quickly. If you are not disciplined you will
get punished both physically and mentally. The first part of resocialization
you are broken down also physically and mentally. You arrive and immediately
get told what to do. You have to throw out any contraband such as candy,
drinks, magazines, books, even unprescribed medicine. You have to change into
your issued clothing and never wear civilian clothing for the rest of the two
and a half months. You get a 30 second call home to let any loved ones know
that you are "safe and well". All this happening while being yelled
at and being called a "fuck-stain" my personal favorite. They break
down the person you were and completely tell you that's not acceptable anymore.
The
second part is when in the institution they build you back up to become in my
case a soldier. Through training and small rewards to keep you going. One way
they did that to us was when we had any competitions with the other platoons in
our company our drill sergeant would say if we win an "put their face in
the dirt" he will add time to our calls home, or at least give us an extra
call home. Through small things like this that to us seem like the entire world
they begin to build us up and become mentors. By then very end for the very
first time our drill sergeant calling us men instead of "fuckers". A
very huge rite of passage was what it was to us.
By
the very end we see that not everyone can go through resocialization. Some take
it in different ways and don't manage to make it through while a lot of us
pushed through the boundaries and graduated. In the very end for those who made
it you could see that a lot of us had changed in our personality not completely
but at least bringing out new qualities you didn't think someone had. Being
completely controlled and broken down we were forced through having to go
through new everyday social experiences to bring something new a new
personality in ourselves.
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