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March 2009

The Continuing Adventures of an Anthropologist-at-Large

Dave “Doc” Matsuda

I returned from Iraq last May and was presented with a stark choice.  Even before I’d shipped my helmet and bullet proof vest back to a military demobilization facility, California State University, East Bay and the College of San Mateo asked me to return to teaching anthropology and developmental psychology classes.  Simultaneously, the U.S. military’s Human Terrain System wanted me to educate the armed forces about how to effectively use non-lethal cultural knowledge.   While campus life has long been my first love, I decided to leave public education for what I now believe is my highest calling:  working as an anthropologist-at-large to teach the military about how to change the nature of warfare.

My plan was to work from home and travel to domestic and foreign academic conferences and military briefings.  After spending a year in Iraq my family needed attention.  Kristi – with whom I’ll celebrate 25 years of marriage this year – and I went to couples counseling.  Not for any particular issue, but as a precaution against the problems that arise from being apart for a lengthy period, and to help exorcise any undetected post traumatic stress demons.  I delighted in rediscovering my two daughters, who’d aged a lifetime while I was overseas.  Katie, our oldest, confided in me, invited me on adventures with her friends, and shared her enthusiasm for gymnastics.  Kimi who, depending on the day, is 11 going on 25 or seven, had become an independent socialite, continually off to sleepovers with friends.  

As an anthropologist-at-large I wrote papers on the uses of non-lethal cultural knowledge, delivering them at academic conferences and military briefings; attended scenario development conferences in which I co-authored Army training exercises; and acted as a cultural adviser to officers at numerous Mission Readiness Exercises, or MRXs.

It was at one of these MRXs that the unthinkable happened.  I was posted to Fort Lewis, Washington, as the temporary substitute for a noted military-scholar who was going to deploy as the cultural adviser for the unit that will be the next “Corps” – second in command of theatre wide operations – in Iraq.  But as I worked to set-up the deploying cultural adviser for success by putting in 18 hour days, the commanding general and his staff began to take notice.  What at the time seemed to be good natured ribbing, “Doc, you’re coming with us right?” was, in hindsight, a psychological operations campaign aimed at stuffing me into the luggage for another Iraq tour.  

My retorts, “Hey, I just got home,” and “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid,” soon gave way to the sympathetic refrain, “Yeah, I wish I was going with you guys, but…”   The trap had been sprung.  I was asked to meet with the I-Corp’s three-star commanding general.  Sensing my reluctance to deploy again less than a year after returning home, the general said, and here I paraphrase, “The United States is really two countries.  We are a big country, and that’s how we got into this mess by thinking that we can push our weight around.  We’re also a great country when people like you step forward and through cultural knowledge enable us to form the mutually beneficial relationships with Iraqis that will result in true partnership, their full sovereignty, and a withdrawal that honors both sides now and in the future.  I believe in the anthropological concept of do no harm.  Let’s work together to make it the baseline for operations.”              

Note to self:  I may be both dumb and stupid.  I agreed to another Iraqi deployment as a cultural adviser to the I-Corps.  A further complication:  the noted military-scholar, who I worked so hard to set up for success, has bowed out for health reasons. And so I’m, at least for now, the cultural advisor to the commanding general of I-Corps.  Stay tuned to the View for what promises to be an interesting and unpredictable renewed “Going to War” series

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