MovieChat Forums > Tribes (1970) Discussion > Why Adrian was wrong and the Sarg is rig...

Why Adrian was wrong and the Sarg is right.

posted 16 years ago by tricksoftrade02
9 replies | jump to latest

Adrians meditation techniques while undenialably useful in everyday life, the use of it in the Marine core places the entire platoon in jeopardy.

The main reason is that a marine has to be almost hyper-aware of his/her surroundings while in the field. While mediating, you go into your own little world, leaving the real world behind.

When the sarg comes in on the platoon and they are all on their beds meditating going 'ohmmmm'. The Sarg has to yell at them to get their attention. All I could think of was what if the Sarg was a enemy scout. The entire platoon would be dead.

[–] Steyr808 16 years ago

Well it was a movie.

I have about 30+ years of experience in Ch'an (Zen) meditation and while there is a sense of being "someplace else" you are in fact very aware of your actual present surroundings. You are simply detached as if you were another observer in the room.

Now by the same token, you will not be capable of superhuman feats, your body will break down just as easily as any other day and the detachment only provides limited amounts of extended endurance.

So as an endurance tool for surviving combat it would have some advantage, the drawback being the amount of time required to be successful which was also not very accurately portrayed in the film.

But in times of stress something is better than nothing so the "whatever works" philosophy would tend to apply.

[–] cooljoebay2 15 years ago

Face the facts. Meditation techniques are used to condition your mind into doing things that others could not do. And because it is conditioning, it doesnt affect you during important moments of time. For instance, remember Carradine in Kung Fu. He meditated, but he didnt lose a fight.

I have to say though that the ways of Marine training is a joke. Its hard to see where its honorable to make humans give up their own identity and humanity to become puppets under a dictatorship. How dumb can they be?

[–] tricksoftrade02 15 years ago

You are a little harsh on the Marine training, while I agree it is not for everyone or it is perfect, there is a purpose.

Marines train recruits to become 'hunters', there is a warrior ethos that they try to enstill. To much introspection can lead to self-doubt and hesitation, and if they hesitate at the wrong time, they would become dead marines.

If you have a platoon of unique individuals in the field all with their own ideas on how to do things, it would be like a nine headed beast with no direction.

I am not totally against meditation techniques for soliders, I do have a problem with it being used while they are in the field however, for the reasons stated above.

[–] paisley1 15 years ago

Tricksoftrade02:

You have probably never meditated a day in your life. If you had meditated, truly meditated, not played at but deep in your heart and your head meditated you would know that meditation can help a person in any situation. It would be particularly effective when a soldier's wounded. If taught to meditate properly, the soldier could literally remove his consciousness from the pain. He could increase or decrease his heart rate, control his breathing, and have a higher success rate of survival than an injured soldier who doesn't practice meditation.

I am not sure how familiar you are with lupus (SLE type) or Sjogren's disease but I have both and the diseases are in the moderate to severe stages. This means that I am suffering from chronic insomnia, chronic pain, joint disease, nerve pain from damaged nerves, my muscles and joints ache constantly because the good cells in my body cannot differentiate between the good and the bad cells so they are killing all of them with no rhyme or reason. The diseases are destroying the connective muscle tissue and even starting to affect my memory causing severe brain fog as well as further damaging my retinas and I already have a retinal eye disease.

By relying solely on the pain medication, I can only reach an area where the pain becomes somewhat tolerable; however, with meditation, I can actually remove the pain completely; however, I can't meditate 24/7 because it's simply not possible to spend that amount of time in your own head space so the only true relief I receive is during meditation and I have been meditating since I was a toddler as have both my children. It's just one more thing among others that has been taught through the generations and it really helps. I'm serious when I say that the ONLY time I am pain free, not merely tolerating the pain but actually freeing myself from the pain is during meditation. If it can help someone like me, it could help anyone....

According to the specialists I've seen over the last decade, by all rights I should be in a wheelchair - unable to walk on my own two legs; however, I am still walking and the doctors are all baffled given the tests I've undergone. My ankles & the bones in both feet have had more breaks and more breaks in the exact same places more than 10x each. I've broken my elbow, many of my fingers, wrist, left leg, cracked my left hip, and even broken my nose 2x. My surgeon actually broke it again during surgery for a deviated septum so that actually means my nose has been broken 3x total. I've fractured my skull in addition to breaking 3 ribs. As you can imagine, my x-rays look like a jigsaw puzzle. Each time I've ended up in the Emergency Room after a break and the doctor comes back in the room, the first thing he asks is if I broke X number of bones at the same time because they are so bad. I have to explain each time that no, they were all basically broken at different times although I have accidentally re-broken a bone after it healed by not given enough time for the bones to heal well and not break again. Even throughout my youth and young adult years in addition to my breaking my left leg, tearing ligaments, and tendons - twice in the same year (2007), meditation has been one way to contain the pain to lessen my dependency on the narcotic medication for break-through pain from lupus (SLE) and Sjogren's. BTW, in 2007, after breaking the leg the first time then accidentally breaking it again after the cast came off and while I was in the boot, I spent almost the entire year in a wheelchair because I wasn't able to use crutches or a walker due to the nerve damage in my arms. Still, amazingly I managed to work my way back to getting out of the wheelchair even though the specialists didn't think it would ever happen. I wore 2 casts that year. The specialist also sent me to a specialist in prosthesis to make a boot that I wear between my sock and the shoe to help prevent breaking those bones again because if I manage to break those bones again, I will be permanently in that wheelchair w/o any chances of coming out of it. The lack of bone density and severe osteoporosis will ultimately cause that area of bone to degenerate to the point where I will never be able to bear weight on it again. The left knee (same leg as the one I broke in 2007 and the ankle/metatarsals have been broken in the same place about 11 times) is going out on me but the docs don't want to take a chance at replacing the knee b/c it only lasts 10 years and in 5 years, I may not have enough bone to replace it so if a new knee joint goes bad, I won't be able to get a replacement so we just wait. It will be a last case scenario.

I've had some of the best orthopedic specialists tell me over the years that I'd have a lot of pain when I grew up from the many breaks I've had over the years and they were not kidding! I feel it all the time, mostly in the winter and when it rains but it is always there. Without meditation to gain some relief from the pain, I don't know if I could survive it. I don't wish to be doped up all the time. Then on top of that, there is the chance of liver damage from having to increase break-through medications b/c of the Tylenol mixed in with the codeine. I try to limit myself to the patches only (Duragesic) and I have managed to stay on a lower dose for longer amounts of time than others who don't practice meditation. You can probably imagine that I am thankful for that much. The patches take the edge off but meditation actually removes it - at least for a while anyhow. I'm sure a soldier whose been shot or otherwise injured might be willing to consider meditation after having been severely wounded if it would take away the pain. They probably wouldn't admit it at any other time; however, when they've had their body shot up or beaten to a pulp, they'd be wishing they'd learned meditation.

So yes, I believe the military would benefit from it if for nothing more than to keep soldiers alive after major life-threatening injuries while waiting for a medi-vac to get them to doctor or hospital. Perhaps there wouldn't be as many deaths from injuries where the soldier goes into shock from the sheer pain if he/she could learn to control the pain until obtaining medical treatment. If you don't believe me, check out a Lamaze class then watch a birth where the mother uses Lamaze techniques to control the pain of contractions and delivery. I've had two children myself so I know how much that can hurt unless you can focus, get into your own head space, and get through the labor and delivery without medication that can cross the placenta and make a newborn lethargic and less bright-eyed as they should be. Lamaze teaching is quite similar to meditation in the way it helps the mind control the pain in the body. I can't see how it works in childbirth yet you seem to believe it has no place and would not work in a military situation. I believe it would work and it would save a lot of lives if more people, men especially, would open themselves up enough to meditate.

Open your mind. As of now, most people only use a tiny portion of their brain. Imagine what would be possible if we could condition ourselves to access and use the portion of the brain that we don't use now? The results could be astronomical.

That's just my opinion and my experiences with meditation. Your mileage may vary.

Paise

[–] Bob_Zerunkel 12 years ago

In this movie, the recruits were oblivious to their surroundings while meditating. They showed it several times with Vincent by himself and with the recruits as a whole. This is extremely dangerous to the safety of those marines and anyone in their units.

Now if you are talking about using techniques that keep you aware of your surroundings, then they would be good to employ.

Teaching soldiers to meditate in order to run longer, do pushups better, etc., would probably be welcomed, even if not understood. During times of war, the Drill Instructors are pushed hard to graduate as many as possible. If you increase the scores, more people graduate, and the Captain stays off your back.

[–] theluckdog 15 years ago

"I have to say though that the ways of Marine training is a joke. Its hard to see where its honorable to make humans give up their own identity and humanity to become puppets under a dictatorship. How dumb can they be?"

Quite obviously from someone who has never been there & whose closest contact with military life was a 5-hour game of Call Of Duty.

Rather than proving yourself ignorant of what you say, why don't you leave that type of remark to those of us who actually know.

Have a nice day.

[–] drp-6 15 years ago

Some elite WW2 Japanese soldiers drew upon a similar body of zen-based knowledge and technique. Nobody questions their literally-suicidal bravery or ability as fighters. One technique is to literally empty your mind to become more aware of the world around you.

Also, the marines used CO's as medics in the Pacific campaign. If anything, they proved more courageous than the average marine (saying a lot). The Japanese would deliberately target medics. So this job took a lot of guts. Even won a medal of honor or two. I watched this movie thinking that the Marines could have solved all problems by just by making the JMV character a Navy medic.

[–] lrcdmnhd72 12 years ago

Agreed, tricksoftrade02,

Well stated! I've used relaxation tapes myself, but would never use them in I were in or around a dangerous situition. I wonder what would have happened if Depayster (Earl Holliman) would have been Adrian's (Jan-Michael Vincent) D.I. instead of Drake (Darren McGavin). Remember the D.I. (1957) when slapping a sand flea could have gotten a whole platoon killed? BTW: A warning came with my relaxation tapes. Namely, don't use these tapes while driving or while operating dangerous equipment.

[–] pkryder-1 10 years ago

What is a sarg? Do you mean SARGE ??