Journalist Jasper Craven on the toxic mix of militarism and masculinity

Vermont journalist Jasper Craven has spent a decade investigating and exposing the culture of toxic masculinity that pervades the American military.In 2018, he wrote a multipart exposé for VTDigger about sexual misconduct and abuse in the Vermont Air National Guard that resulted in hearings at the Vermont Statehouse, reforms in the Guard, and the departure of the adjutant general. His writing on the military and veterans has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Politico and Mother Jones, among other publications.Craven’s investigation into the Vermont Guard showed him how “the military holds unique elements that can make these problems worse than in civilian life, and also that many of the systems developed to combat that behavior are themselves flawed and easily exploited and can leave women in particular really feeling betrayed by an institution that they've given their lives to.”Craven, who is 33, has a new book, “God Forgives, Brothers Don’t: The Long March of Military Education and the Making of American Manhood.” He argues that the U.S. military shapes American masculinity, especially through military schools, academies, and programs such as Junior ROTC in middle and high schools and ROTC in colleges. But the form of masculinity that these institutions advance has taken a heavy toll, as evidenced by a suicide crisis throughout the military.“The idea that the military is the single and most effective reform program for boys is just completely untrue,” said Craven. “Since the 1800s there are many stories of mostly young boys who have been deeply damaged while under the care of military school officials — some have died, some have committed suicide, some have been hospitalized for psychiatric crises.”Craven points to the chest-thumping hypermasculinity of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as emblematic of how some men are responding to the growing diversity of the military, including the rising status of women. “Women are being elevated for the first time into senior roles where they are often outshining men in both physical and academic pursuits, and that is majorly threatening to people like Hegseth,” Craven said. “The military response to that is violent subjugation, and that is what we see with Hegseth. … He is just psychically hung up on all of these old school ideas around manliness and military service.”Craven’s reporting on the military earned him an unexpected visit from the U.S. Secret Service. After he covered protests at West Point during a speech by President Donald Trump for a story for Politico, a Secret Service agent paid a visit to his parents’ home in Vermont.The agent was “alleging without merit, completely falsely that I was acting suspiciously on campus and that I had been asking around to meet the president — again, not true — though if I had been doing that, (I was) certainly well within my rights as a journalist.” Craven quickly concluded that “it was a pretty clear-cut act of intimidation from West Point.”Craven has not been deterred. He is moving back to Vermont to continue his work in journalism. He hopes that his work leads to “alternative ideas around shaping American masculinity and aiding American men.”