Ronson - The Men Who Stare at Goats

Also by Jon Ronson

THEM: ADVENTURES WITH EXTREMISTS

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Copyright 2004 by Jon Ronson

Originally published in Great Britain in 2004 by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2005041263

ISBN 978-0-7432-4192-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-8177-5 (pbk)

For John Sergeant and also for General Stubblebine

The Men Who Stare at Goats

This is a true story. It is the summer of 1983. Major General Albert Stubblebine III is sitting behind his desk in Arlington, Virginia, and he is staring at his wall, upon which hang his numerous military awards. They detail a long and distinguished career. He is the United States Armys chief of intelligence, with sixteen thousand soldiers under his command. He controls the armys signals intelligence, their photographic and technical intelligence, their numerous covert counterintelligence units, and their secret military spying units, which are scattered throughout the world. He would be in charge of the prisoner-of-war interrogations too, except this is 1983, and the war is cold, not hot.

He looks past his awards to the wall itself. There is something he feels he needs to do even though the thought of it frightens him. He thinks about the choice he has to make. He can stay in his office or he can go into the next office. That is his choice. And he has made it.

He is going into the next office.

General Stubblebine looks a lot like Lee Marvin. In fact, it is widely rumored throughout military intelligence that he is Lee Marvins identical twin. His face is craggy and unusually still, like an aerial photograph of some mountainous terrain taken from one of his spy planes. His eyes, forever darting around and full of kindness, seem to do the work for his whole face.

In fact he is not related to Lee Marvin at all. He likes the rumor because mystique can be beneficial to a career in intelligence. His job is to assess the intelligence gathered by his soldiers and pass his evaluations on to the deputy director of the CIA and the chief of staff for the army, who in turn pass it up to the White House. He commands soldiers in Panama, Japan, Hawaii, and across Europe. His responsibilities being what they are, he knows he ought to have his own man at his side in case anything goes wrong during his journey into the next office.

Even so, he doesnt call for his assistant, Command Sergeant George Howell. This is something he feels he must do alone.

Am I ready? he thinks. Yes, I am ready.

He stands up, moves out from behind his desk, and begins to walk.

I mean, he thinks, what is the atom mostly made up of anyway? Space!

He quickens his pace.

What am I mostly made up of? he thinks. Atoms!

He is almost at a jog now.

What is the wall mostly made up of? he thinks. Atoms! All I have to do is merge the spaces. The wall is an illusion. What is destiny? Am I destined to stay in this room? Ha, no!

Then General Stubblebine bangs his nose hard on the wall of his office.

Damn, he thinks.

General Stubblebine is confounded by his continual failure to walk through his wall. Whats wrong with him that he cant do it? Maybe there is simply too much in his in-tray for him to give it the requisite level of concentration. There is no doubt in his mind that the ability to pass through objects will one day be a common tool in the intelligence-gathering arsenal. And when that happens, well, is it too naive to believe it would herald the dawning of a world without war? Who would want to screw around with an army that could do that? General Stubblebine, like many of his contemporaries, is still extremely bruised by his memories of Vietnam.

These powers are attainable, so the only question is, by whom? Who in the military is already geared toward this kind of thing? Which section of the army is trained to operate at the peak of their physical and mental capabilities?

And then the answer comes to him.

Special Forces!

This is why, in the late summer of 1983, General Stub-blebine flies down to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

Fort Bragg is vasta town guarded by armed soldiers, with a mall, a cinema, restaurants, golf courses, hotels, swimming pools, riding stables, and accommodations for forty-five thousand soldiers and their families. The general drives past these places on his way to the Special Forces Command Center. This is not the kind of thing you take into the mess hall. This is for Special Forces and nobody else. Still, hes afraid. What is he about to unleash?

In the Special Forces Command Center, the general decides to start soft. Im coming down here with an idea, he begins.

The Special Forces commanders nod.

If you have a unit operating outside the protection of mainline units, what happens if somebody gets hurt? he says. What happens if somebody gets wounded? How do you deal with that?

He surveys the blank faces around the room.

Psychic healing! he says.

There is a silence.

This is what were talking about, says the general, pointing to his head. If you use your mind to heal, you can probably come out with your whole team alive and intact. You wont have to leave anyone behind. He pauses, then adds, Protect the unit structure by hands-off and hands-on healing!

The Special Forces commanders dont look particularly interested in psychic healing.

Okay, says General Stubblebine. The reception hes getting is really quite chilly. Wouldnt it be a neat idea if you could teach somebody to do this?

General Stubblebine rifles through his bag and produces, with a flourish, bent cutlery.

What if you could do this? says General Stubblebine. Would you be interested?

There is a silence.

General Stubblebine finds himself beginning to stammer a little. Theyre looking at me as if Im nuts, he thinks. I am not presenting this correctly.

He glances anxiously at the clock.

Lets talk about time! he says. What would happen if time is not an instant? What if time has an X-axis, a Y-axis, and a Z-axis? What if time is not a point but a space? At any particular time we can be anywhere in that space! Is the space confined to the ceiling of this room, or is the space