From Prowar Soldier to Antiwar Activist: Change and Continuity in the Narratives of Political Conversion among Iraq War Veterans

Abstract

This study examines conversion narratives of Iraq War military veterans who have become antiwar political activists. I examine how antiwar veterans construct and emplot prewar, wartime, and postwar narrative periods to shape and reclaim their moral identities as patriots fighting for a just cause, and how through a communal antiwar story they work to both challenge and reappropriate the rhetorical framework they associate with justifications for the invasion of Iraq. The study draws on in-depth interviews with forty members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). In sum, the research describes how veterans engage with dominant narratives, shape new moral identities, and transition from soldiers to political activists.

“I Was There” and “It Happened to Me”: An Exploratory Study of Killing as an Adventure Narrative in the Accounts of Soldiers and Police Officers

“…As a patterned narrative, the way the killings are socially organized can be thematically classified as preparatory behaviors that precede the adventure, killing as an adventure that has to be negotiated, and surviving the adventure. Our finding that killing can be described as an adventure narrative represents an alternative to the outcome-oriented studies of killing used in previous works or the examination of soldiers and veterans and their lives as conversion and awakening narratives (e.g., DeGloma, 2010, 2014; Flores, 2016, 2017).…”

“…As one of the few adventures where taking the life of another is a real possibility, narratives that chronicle the killing of another human being constitute a transformation in one’s self-identity (Zerubavel, 2003). They become turning points in the lives of soldiers and police officers in that these adventures become fodders for their awakenings that lead to conversion narratives (DeGloma, 2014); they also function as vocabularies of motive that function as excuses to justify their killings (Flores, 2016). As an adventure narrative, killing is textually constructed as a rational and an ineluctable act that occurs in the context of defense.…”

“…On a microlevel, researchers have chronicled how returning war veterans (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq) construct narratives to enact and carry out political activities as part of social movements (Flores, 2017). Previous works have shown that veterans formulate conversion and awakening narratives to shed their previous feelings about the military from blind patriotism to disillusionment to a newfound sense of meaning and self-reclamation through political action (DeGloma, 2010; Flores, 2016). Narratives of veterans constitute sociopolitical acts designed to account for changes in consciousness while constructing a social identity (Zerubavel, 2003) in the context of social movements (Degloma, 2014).…”

“…These types of near-death experiences are significant because they become a source of transformative meaning in a larger context of personal change (Flores, 2016). Previous researchers have noted that veterans undergo a change of consciousness during their deployment to war, exemplified in the awakening narratives that chronicle their transition from idealistic patriotism to self-preservation, a “fundamental change in the perception of their lives and orientation to the world” (DeGloma, 2014, p. 2).…”

Narrative Manhood Acts: Batterer Intervention Program Graduates' Tragic Relationships

“…Conversion narratives—also called narratives of self‐transformation (Dunn ) or awakening stories (DeGloma )—are useful outside of religion because they help people make sense of almost any kind of identity change. For instance, both pro‐war soldiers who become anti‐war activists (Flores ) and gay people who become straight (Ponticelli ) construct conversion narratives. In his comparative study, DeGloma (:132, 124) points out that a key feature is the “temporally divided self” in which narrators often “debase their past self” and glorify their new self as evoking authenticity and happiness.…”