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Sexual Violence, Counterinsurgents, and the Legacies of Jean Lartéguy's The Centurions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2020

DAVID FITZGERALD*
Affiliation:
History Department, University College Cork, National University of Ireland. Email: d.fitzgerald@ucc.ie.

Abstract

Jean Lartéguy's 1960 novel The Centurions, which follows a group of French paratroopers through the wars in Indochina and Algeria, is one that has achieved cult status within the US military. In embracing this novel as a valuable how-to guide for counterinsurgents, those who promote The Centurions ignore the sexual violence and misogyny at the heart of the work, reflecting deeper silences over the issue of sexual violence in war. This article explores both the depictions of sexual violence in The Centurions and the silences that surround those depictions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2020

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71 Ibid., 514.

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80 McChrystal, “Foreword,” xi.

81 Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall, “In Secret Unit's ‘Black Room,’ a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse,” New York Times, 19 March 2006, at www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/world/middleeast/in-secret-units-black-room-a-grim-portrait-of-us-abuse.html; Human Rights Watch, “‘No Blood, No Foul’: Soldiers’ Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq,” Human Rights Watch, 22 July 2006, at www.hrw.org/report/2006/07/22/no-blood-no-foul/soldiers-accounts-detainee-abuse-iraq.

82 Lartéguy, The Centurions, 285.

83 MacKenzie, Megan, Beyond the Band of Brothers: The US Military and the Myth That Women Can't Fight (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 1019CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Victoria Basham, Claire Duncanson, and Rachel Woodward have argued that feminist scholars need to do more to reckon with how the integration of women in the military destabilizes norms around heroism and war. Basham, Victoria, War, Identity and the Liberal State: Everyday Experiences of the Geopolitical in the Armed Forces (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Duncanson, Claire P. and Woodward, Rachel, “Regendering the Military: Theorizing Women's Military Participation,” Security Dialogue, 7, 1 (2016), 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Alan Blinder and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “How a Military Sexual Assault Case Foundered,” New York Times, 12 March 2014, at www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/us/how-a-military-sexual-assault-case-foundered.html.

85 Jeffrey Brooks, “Charges Tarnish High-Profile Career of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Allen Sinclair,” Fayetesville Observer, 10 Oct. 2012, at www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://%3A%2F%2Fwww.fayobserver.com%2Farticles%2F2012%2F10%2F09%2F1208154%3Fsac%3Dfo.local&date=2013-02-15.

86 Craig Whitlock, “Disgraced Army General, Jeffrey A. Sinclair, Receives Fine, No Jail Time,” Washington Post, 20 March 2014, at www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/disgraced-army-general-jeffrey-a-sinclair-receives-fine-no-jail-time/2014/03/20/c555b650-b039-11e3-95e8-39bef8e9a48b_story.html.

87 For an account of how casual and sexism and misogyny exist on the same continuum as sexual violence see de Volo, Lorraine Bayard and Hall, Lynn K., “‘I Wish All the Ladies Were Holes in the Road’: The US Air Force Academy and the Gendered Continuum of Violence,” Signs, 40, 4 (2015), 865–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at https://doi.org/10.1086/680328.

88 Mark Thompson, “When the Skit Hits the Fan: The Army's Sexual-Assault Woes Persist,” Time, March 2014, at https://time.com/31890/military-sexual-assault-jeffrey-sinclair-trial; Spencer Ackerman, “Army Says This General Sexually Abused an Officer, Then Threatened Her Career,” Wired, 19 Dec. 2012, at www.wired.com/2012/12/sinclair.

89 Allie Jones, “Men's Rights Activists Embrace the Complex Rape Case against Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair,” The Atlantic, 12 March 2014, at www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/mens-rights-activists-embrace-complex-rape-case-against-brigadier-general-jeffrey-sinclair/359087; Craig Whitlock, “Sordid Details Spill Out in Rare Court-Martial of a General,” Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2013, at www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sordid-details-spill-out-in-rare-court-martial-of-a-general/2013/08/14/f6c89c68-008d-11e3-a661-06a2955a5531_story.html; Karen McVeigh, “Jeffrey Sinclair: US General Guilty of ‘Inappropriate Relationships’ Avoids Jail,” The Guardian, 20 March 2014, at www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/army-jeffrey-sinclair-no-jail-time-trial-sexual-assault.

90 Arguments that the US military has a particular problem with sexual violence are long-standing. For one of the formative articles in this subfield see Morris, Madeline, “By Force of Arms: Rape, War, and Military Culture,” Duke Law Journal, 45, 4 (1996), 651781CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at https://doi.org/10.2307/1372997. For more recent commentary of the historical impunity of elite combat units when faced with accusations of sexual violence see Ruth Lawlor, “When Commemorating D-Day, Don't Forget the Dark Side of American War Efforts,” Washington Post, 6 June 2019, at www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/06/when-commemorating-d-day-dont-forget-dark-side-american-war-efforts.

91 Chuck Williams, “Retired Gen. McChrystal Says Doors Opening for Female Soldiers,” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, 25 Aug. 2015, at www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/business/article32405400.html.

92 Michael Winerip, “Revisiting the Military's Tailhook Scandal,” New York Times, 19 Oct. 2018, at www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/booming/revisiting-the-militarys-tailhook-scandal-video.html; Francis X. Clines, “Drill Sergeant Gets 6 Months for Sex Abuse at Army Post,” New York Times, 31 May 1997, at www.nytimes.com/1997/05/31/us/drill-sergeant-gets-6-months-for-sex-abuse-at-army-post.html; Shawn Snow, “Seven Marines Court-Martialed in Wake of Marines United Scandal,” Marine Corps Times, 1 March 2018, at www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/03/01/seven-marines-court-martialed-in-wake-of-marines-united-scandal; Turchik, Jessica A. and Wilson, Susan M., “Sexual Assault in the U.S. Military: A Review of the Literature and Recommendations for the Future,” Aggression and Violent Behavior, 15, 4 (1 July 2010), 267–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2010.01.005.

93 “OAF Nation – Home,” at www.facebook.com/oafnationactual, accessed 4 Dec. 2018; “OAF Nation – About,” OAF Nation (blog), 1 June 2016, at http://oafnation.com/about.

94 For the links between military identity and masculinity see Arkin, William and Dobrofsky, Lynne R., “Military Socialization and Masculinity,” Journal of Social Issues, 34, 1 (Winter 1978), 151–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1978.tb02546.x.