Rural Sociology 65(4), 2000, pp. 640-657

Copyright © 2000 by the Rural Sociological Society

Warrior Heroes and Little Green Men: Soldiers, MilitaryTraining, and the Construction of Rural Masculinities*

Rachel WoodwardCentre for Rural Economy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

ABSTRACT In this paper I examine military masculinities as a form ofrural masculinity. I argue that one model of military masculinity, the war-rior hero, acts as a dominant military construction of masculinity . I exam-ine how the countryside as a location, and rurality as a social construction,impinge upon the construction of the ideal type of the warrior hero . Thepaper draws on recruitment literature, Ministry of Defence publicity ma-terials, popular accounts of soldiering, and Army videos to trace out thepractices and representations that construct the dominant discourse ofthe warrior hero. The paper is grounded conceptually in theories of gen-der identity and rurality as social constructions . I conclude by questioningthe political consequences, both for rural life and for the armed forces, ofthis hegemonic model of masculinity.

In this paper I examine soldiers, military training, the constructionof military masculinities, and the role of the countryside and rural-ity in that process . Soldiers are not born but made . They are fash-ioned through their training in specific ways, for specific ends . Inthe United Kingdom, this training takes place with reference torural space and place . Here I look at that training process with theaim of demonstrating how ideas of rurality and masculinity inter-sect within it . I argue that becoming an infantry solider means be-ing molded according to a specific model (one of many) of militarymasculinity. I also argue that this model could be viewed as a ruralmasculinity because of its location and because, at a more abstractlevel, rurality (as a social construction) influences the form(s) ofmilitary masculinity produced in the training process.

There is nothing new, of course, in an exploration of the ways inwhich gender identities-what it means to be male or female-im-pinge on soldiers and military life . What is perhaps less obvious,and the central focus of this paper, is the significance of place andspace in the formation of military gender identities.

The research reported here grew out of a wider research agendaexploring the various relationships between the armed forces andthe countryside in Britain . As I have argued elsewhere, the signifi-cance of military peacetime activities in rural space, the dominance

* My thanks to Mike Bell, Hugh Campbell, and four anonymous referees for theirhelpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper . Direct communications toRachel Woodward, Centre for Rural Economy, Department of Agricultural Econom-ics and Food Marketing, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU,UK ; r. e .woodward@newcastle .ac .uk

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of the armed forces as employers in particular localities, the pres-ence of soldiers in rural localities occupied by military bases, andthe cultural links at a number of levels between rurality and themilitary in Britain make the armed forces, and specifically theBritish Army, a pertinent subject of inquiry in rural studies (Wood-ward 1996).

As part of this wider research agenda, in 1997 I conducted re-search on military training in protected landscapes (Woodward1998a, 1999) . This research required a lengthy period of observa-tion of Army personnel during a public planning inquiry. Long andoften tedious sessions during this inquiry were sometimes en-livened by senior officers' passionate, heartfelt accounts explainingwhy it is absolutely necessary for the British Army to train on thebleak, wet, windy moorlands of northern England, rather than inthe relative comfort of computer simulation or overseas training ar-eas. National security, it seemed, relied on men (yes, men) con-ducting their training in one of the more inhospitable rural envi-ronments that the British Isles have to offer. Then, during coffeebreaks, the same officers could be overheard talking of their ownfitness regimes and training activities, and the locations of those ac-tivities.

Also at that time, I began reading cheap paperback books pro-duced for a mass market hungry for real-life accounts of soldieringexploits . These books frequently made reference to the significanceof place in the training process, in the formation of the soldier, andin the conduct of military engagement . My initial impressions sug-gested a set of relationships between masculinity, militarism, andrurality, which I had explored in an earlier paper looking moregenerally at the connections between the countryside and the con-struction of military masculinity (Woodward 1998b).

In this paper I take a more direct look at the processes by whichmodels of military masculinity shape the training of the solider. Iexamine the role of the countryside and rurality in that process,and I question some of the implications for both rural areas andthe armed forces.

Methods: Discourses of Rurality and Gender inMilitary Masculinity

To investigate the ways in which rurality and the countryside are in-tegral to the training of soldiers, I collected empirical data on mili-tary training and its locations from an eclectic array of sources . Iexplored five principal sources of data.

First, I examined recruitment materials produced by the Armyfor all regiments and corps in combat arms and combat supportarms, plus supporting services. This material is primarily informa-tion on careers in the armed forces and selection procedures, sent

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out to potential recruits, who are mostly male, mostly white, mostlyage 16 to 24, and mostly educated only to secondary school levels.Some further information was supplied directly by the Army Train-ing and Recruitment Agency.

The second data source consisted of publicity information aboutmilitary training, produced by the armed forces and the Ministry ofDefence for wider publication . This included Ministry of Defencepress releases, back issues of Soldier, "the magazine of the BritishArmy, " and the Royal United Services Institute Journal.

The third data source consisted of materials used directly by theArmy during the period of basic training that all recruits undergo,including the videos Train Green, It's Plain Sense Too, and Room toManoeuvre.

Fourth, I searched through many of the above-mentioned mass-market "true life army story" paperbacks, an expanding genre inwhich former soldiers tell their stories of active service to a mostlyyoung, male readership eager to learn how it really was (see, for ex-ample, Ballinger 1992 ; McNab 1993; Ramsey 1996 ; Ryan 1995;Spence 1997, 1998) . Also illuminating in their own way were booksand magazines purporting to explain to the novice the secrets ofmilitary success (see, for example, Lewis 1997 ; Combat and Survivalmagazine).

Fifth, television documentaries on military life, such as CarltonTelevision's 1999 series Soldier Town and the BBC's 1999 Soldiers ToBe, provided ideas and insight.

The generation of research data relied on a close reading ofthese texts, with reference to analytic methods drawn from dis-course analysis . The primary goal of such methods is an explo-ration of the systems in which meaning is granted to objects and ac-tions, and in which relationships between entities are constructed(see Fairclough 1997 ; Mills 1997; van Dijk 1997) . In short, I ex-plored these five data sources with the intention of uncovering thediscourses in which military training, gender identities, and rural-ity were constructed.

The use of discourse-analytic techniques in turn rests within aconceptual framework in which masculinity and rurality are viewedas socially constructed entities . Lack of space precludes a full reviewof the literatures on both, but I highlight the salient features of cur-rent conceptual approaches to the construction of gender identi-ties and rurality because they provide the conceptual framework forthis paper.

The salient points are these. First, in this paper I follow the argu-ments of most contemporary scholars of gender in viewing genderidentities as socially constructed . We act according to social ratherthan innate biological prescription (Butler 1990, 1993 ; Connell1995a, 1995b; de Beauvoir [1949] 1973) . Gender identities are the

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tangible outcome of conscious human action . Second, and follow-ing from this, gender identities are fluid and changeable . We havethe capacity to endorse, reproduce, change, and subvert norms ofbehavior prescribed by social convention . Third, our abilities to doso are often enabled or constrained by the contexts in which ourgender identities are played out . Fourth, these gender identities arenot monolithic but show infinite variety according to the contextsin which they are produced and reproduced. Fifth, they are also re-lational ; some are dominant, others subordinate . Sixth, genderidentities are constructed in space, with reference to place, andthrough the relationship of the body to space (Rose 1995 ; WGSG1997) . Finally, gender identities are both culturally and temporallyspecific .

Military Masculinity and the Warrior Hero

Armies and military activity have long been recognized as impor-tant sites for the construction of masculinities . Militaries have vari-ously been termed masculine, patriarchal, and androcentric(Cnossen 1994) . There now exists a considerable literature on therelationships between masculinity and military activity (Addlestonand Stirrat 1996 ; Barrett 1996 ; Cohn 1995 ; Connell 1993, 1995a,1995b; Cooke and Woollacott 1993; Donaldson 1993; Elliott 1996;Herbert 1998; Morgan 1994; Yuval-Davis 1997) ; I would like to em-phasize three key points that this literature raises.

First, there are many forms of military masculinity ; indeed, therelationship between different models of military masculinity formsthe basis of much military organization . Connell (1995a), for ex-ample, notes how in contemporary Western military culture a mas-culinity celebrating a capacity for physical violence, yet subordinateto orders, is dominated by a masculinity celebrating organizationalcompetence.

Second, different cultures have celebrated or derided differentmodels of military masculinity at different times . For example, theTommy of Rudyard Kipling's eponymous poem is accorded low so-cial esteem and brutish characteristics as a rank-and-file soldier inVictorian England.

Third, there are parallels and connections between (on the onehand) the values and attributes of what Connell (1995a) terms hege-monic masculinity (such as aggression, a capacity for violence, and anaggressive heterosexuality) and (on the other) the dominant modelof military masculinity, the warrior hero (see Dawson 1994;Newsinger 1997 ; Parker 1985) . The warrior hero is physically fit andpowerful. He is mentally strong and unemotional . He is capable ofboth solitary, individual pursuit of his goals and self-denying con-tribution towards the work of the team . He's also a bit of a herowith a knack for picking up girls and is resolutely heterosexual . He

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is brave, adventurous, and prepared to take risks . Crucially, he pos-sesses the abilities to conquer hostile environments, to cross unfa-miliar terrain, and to lay claim to dangerous ground . He appears,for example, as a poster-sized centerfold in a recruitment pack sentout to aspirant soldiers . He wades waist-high through a river, lead-ing a patrol of followers, weapon ready, camouflaged against thebackdrop of reeds and branches, over the caption "ACTIONYOUNG ON-THE-MOVE SORTED WELL-TRAINED" (Army Re-cruiting Group undated a).

The warrior hero is a model of military masculinity, not a tangi-ble reality. He provides an important starting point for analysis, firstbecause this cultural icon informs the production of many of thediscourses of masculinity evident in the data sources outlinedabove, and second because (as with all ideal types) he is open tosubversion and contradiction as well as reproduction . The warriorhero is one of many military masculinities . Here I focus on him be-cause it is primarily he who engages physically and discursively withrural environments. He is an infantryman, trained for close-quar-ters combat on the battlefield . He is resolutely male; he is genderedand sexed as a man, and cannot be a woman. Women in the BritishArmy are barred from holding combat positions in the infantry.

Conceptualizing Rural Masculinities

The idea that there might be distinct rural masculinities (some ofwhich might be military) seems strange at first sight, perhaps an-other cry from rural studies to draw attention to its subdisciplinaryspecificity in an increasingly postdisciplinary social science . Yetthere are both strategic and epistemological reasons for exploringthe construction of military masculinities across space with refer-ence to rural masculinities . Strategically, talking of rural masculinitysignals two conceptually important points.

The first is an explicit recognition of the importance of spaceand place in the construction of gender identities . As outlinedabove, masculinities are produced with reference to both their realand their imagined locations . Speaking explicitly of rural masculin-ity reinforces that point about locational significance.

The second strategic reason for speaking of rural masculinity isthat it makes explicit the importance of gender identities in theconstruction of rurality. In the 1990s, there has been significantand illuminating debate within rural studies on the meaning of"the rural." One outcome has been an increased emphasis on ru-rality as a social construction (see Cloke and Little 1997 ; Halfacree1995; Jones 1995; Milbourne 1997; Murdoch and Pratt 1993, 1994;Philo 1993; Pratt 1996) . Talking of rural masculinity emphasizes aconceptual allegiance to this "social constructionist" approach inrural studies, as well as making an explicit statement on the cen-

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trality of gender in the structuring of rural social relations and so-cial life (Little and Austin 1996).

There are also epistemological reasons for studying military mas-culinity within a conceptual framework suggested by the notion of"rural masculinity." Although the study of rural masculinity could betaken to mean the mapping of different types of masculinity ontodifferent types of rural space, a rather more interesting approach isinterpretative, looking at masculinities as social constructions andthe ways in which they draw from constructions of rurality . Thisprocess involves an examination of the ways in which ruralities andmasculinities connect or bounce off each other, in a search for con-nections and discontinuities . It also entails a search for the conse-quences, particularly of the politics and power relations implicitwithin discursive formations in social life . The power relations im-plicit in gender identities do much to shape the social structureand culture of particular localities and institutions. Where they areunequal, discriminatory, or destructive, this situation needs criticalassessment. Where they are positive, they suggest progressive mech-anisms for social change. Viewed from this perspective, the study ofrural masculinities becomes not only the assessment of the con-struction of spatialized masculinities, but also the examination ofthe resulting implications and consequences.

Countryside and Rurality in the Construction ofMilitary Masculinity

Recruitment Literature

There is nothing essential about the links between masculinity andrurality, nothing inherent in rurality that determines an automaticrole for it in the construction of military masculinity. The connec-tions that I am drawing arise through circumstance and are rein-forced through social practices . A useful place to start unpackingand examining this process is in the promises made to potential re-cruits in literature aimed at attracting them to life in the Army . Thepurpose of recruitment literature is simple : to present a picture ofArmy life so as to attract recruits with the attributes suitable formolding into an identified finished product, the competent soldier.Although recruitment literature is aimed at a fairly tightly definedgroup (young men and women in good physical health), the rangeof occupations open within the Army is broad, and the literaturemust cater to this diversity. Accordingly the Army produces an ar-ray of brochures, posters, and booklets specific to the differentbranches (such as infantry, artillery, engineers, and signals) . HereI draw from the materials for infantry training.

The civilian academic is struck immediately by the emphasisplaced on the totality of the experience of military life . Being a sol-

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dier, according to the recruitment literature, is all-encompassing.Becoming a solider requires complete commitment and determi-nation. The trade-off, it seems, comes in the rewards for such com-mitment . In the words of one brochure, joining up brings "[t]rain-ing for life, unbeatable rewards, excitement and adventure, a greatlifestyle, a job worth doing." Being a soldier entails a whole newlifestyle . "Training for life" is central to the production of militarymasculinities that mirror the warrior hero model . It involves thetransformation from civilian to solider . As part of this process, thevalues and attributes associated with the "warrior hero" must be in-culcated in the individual; gender identities must be changed . Thischange, I would argue, is produced through the process of militarytraining.

Military TrainingMilitary training is the acquisition and development of a collectionof physical and mental attributes required in order to undertakethe tasks necessary for waging war. In this process, individuals mustbe shaped and molded according to a uniform template for ap-pearance, behavior, and attitude (see BBC 1999 ; Beevor 1991) . Thecountryside as location, and rurality as social construction, arequite fundamental to the development of the requisite physical andmental attributes.

Rural areas provide the location and backdrop to most training.All recruitment literature makes use of this backdrop . For example,an Army Recruiting Group brochure combines text describing theroutine of infantry training with a series of photographs in whichmen and women load mortars on a hillside, crouch camouflaged inwoodland, and run full tilt down a moor (ARG undated a, b) . An-other brochure, Getting Fit for the Army, uses similar illustrations . Asthe text explains:

Being a soldier is an active, outdoor life whichever part ofthe Army you join . You have to be able to think fast, keepgoing and do your job even when you're tired and workingin difficult conditions . (ATRA 1999 :n.p .)

The rural location provides the backdrop, but is also constructed asa challenging location against which the recruit is pitted . At thispoint we see different constructions of rurality used in the repre-sentation of the training process . For example, the artillery firing,the exercises in camouflage use, and the full-tilt running take placein a bleak moorland landscape spread out under lowering greyclouds (ARG, undated b).

To deal with the challenges of both the training and its location,the recruitment literature places great emphasis on the particular

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physical attributes that are needed. First and foremost, the soldiermust literally be "fighting fit :"

The Army operates in all sorts of climates and terrainsaround the world and its men and women have to be readyto take up that challenge at a moment's notice . From steamyjungles to snowy mountains, you will be trained to carry outyour specialist and military roles quickly and effectively . Youwill become fitter and stronger than you have ever beenand you will learn to think on your feet and respond torapidly changing circumstances . (ARG undated a :n.p .)

This physical fitness, then, is a quality needed for mastery of a va-riety of terrains . Again, a rurality creeps in; note how fitness isneeded for jungles and mountains . Presumably, training for footpatrols on the streets of Sarajevo or Nicosia does not have the sameallure.

Above all, such fitness is central to the type of masculinity pro-moted as a desirable (possibly necessary) attribute of the infantrysoldier. Physical fitness is absolutely essential to the role of the footsoldier, and thus is celebrated as a defining attribute within thisparticular model of military masculinity. This is not presented asthe controlled physical exercise of the gym or health spa, butrather as a physical necessity developed to transcend the environ-ment in which the solider finds himself or herself .' This attribute isvalued as highly for the warrior hero as for the soldier in practice.

To work towards this peak of physical strength, recruits undergoa period of basic training . The rural location is important ; this isnot merely fitness training on an athletics track but fitness to tacklenature . Recruitment literature draws heavily on the rural as loca-tion and as construction in spatializing or grounding this elementof training.

A first week of drill skills, map reading, and instruction in healthand hygiene is followed by a second week devoted to fieldcraft . Re-cruits are put straight out into the open air of an Army Field Train-ing Centre to come to grips with the countryside:

You'll learn camouflage techniques and have your firsttaste of night training . That means using your eyes andears in a different way - exploring how to identify noisesat night, and how to see more clearly using off-centre vi-sion. On your first night exercise, you and your battle part-ner operate in a buddy/buddy team . You'll build a shelter,which you'll sleep in, you'll cook your rations, and look outfor each other. (ARG undated b:15)

Again, the warrior hero is always a man, but different branches of the Army re-quire different levels of fitness from their personnel, who may be male or female .

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Training is about the development of both physical and mental at-tributes . The above quotation shows how this includes the acquisi-tion of a new way of being in the countryside, which involves theuse of camouflage and night vision as well as reliance on the senses.For many recruits, this will involve quite a fundamental shift ; seniormilitary personnel frequently complain about the lack of outdoorsexperience in a largely urban-based Army intake (BBC 1999;Beevor 1991) . The rural in the above quotation pertains to morethan merely physical location . The rurality constructed here ismatched to the task; the great outdoors is a place for survival ratherthan pastoral contemplation, a place of potential hazard and dan-ger rather than a leisured landscape . It is certainly not the ruralidyll of community and nature in harmony, perhaps imagined by alargely urban body of recruits.

Constructing Military Discourses of the Environment

A new way of being in the countryside requires a new way of seeingthat countryside . The inculcation of environmental awareness is en-tirely necessary, given many recruits' urban background, lack of ed-ucation, and lack of affinity for the natural environment . The taskof training videos, for example, is "to turn a recruit with a disregardfor the environment into someone with a stake in the countryside"(M. Coulson, military video consultant, personal communication,30 th September 1998) . One such video, Its Plain Sense Too (aboutSalisbury Plain Training Area), sets up a vision of the countrysideas the object of legitimate military concerns . This vision is carriedforward in a discourse that establishes the scope of military activi-ties in the rural training estate as a balance between effective train-ing and environmental disturbance. (For a critique of this andother discourses of military environmentalism, see Woodward2000.) A new way of seeing the countryside comes packaged in anethos that emphasizes the specificity of the military vision of rural-ity and its use of the training estate : "[T]he last thing we want to dois give the Greens any reason to try and curtail our activities" (ArmyDepartment 1996).

In this video, the idea of environmental protection is made morepalatable to the perhaps disparaging recruit through the use of hu-mor, provided by actor Tony Robinson (the Baldrick character in theBlackadder television series, and presenter of the archaeology televi-sion program Timewatch) . Dressed up as (variously) ancient Briton,Roman legionnaire, Civil War royalist, and First World War recruit,Robinson comments on historic uses of Salisbury Plain to provideparallels and contrasts with present military uses, as in this example:

Us ancient Brits were very fond of [Salisbury Plain] . We al-ways had respect for the environment though, even in the

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heat of battle . Once I was locked in mortal combat with thelocal bully, Snogbag the Swine . I was just about to deal hima deathly blow with my club when he shouts out "Look out!An orchid!" and there beneath my feet was a rare and del-icate flower that we were about to trample on . Forgettingour blood lust for a moment, I bent down to savor thebeauty and fragrance of this tiniest of nature's miracles.Snogbag, a warm smile creasing across his fearsome face,then stabbed me in the leg, the bastard . Still, those werethe days. We led a simple life, harvesting our crops, raisingour cattle, shagging anything that moved, which more of-ten than not was our cattle . But they do say that whateveryou take out of nature you should put back in again, sothat was probably quite a green thing to do really. (ArmyDepartment 1996:n.p .)

Space limitations and the danger of wandering off-topic precludea detailed analysis of the politics of the wit in military trainingvideo; suffice it to say, as Beevor notes, the British soldier has alwayssurvived on a sick sense of humor, doubtless a form of self-protec-tion in stressful battle situations (Beevor 1991) . More central to thispaper is the point that military discipline, that essential attribute inan organization with the monopoly on the use of legitimate vio-lence, includes the discipline to consider the impact of militarytraining on the natural environment ; as the closing video captionstates, "Train and preserve, preserve and train ."

This new way of being in the countryside also requires new waysof being in a group . Again, we see the values attributed to a modelof military masculinity being developed as part of the trainingprocess ; we also see the role played by the rural in this process . Thetension between individualism and teamwork is one of the hall-marks of the warrior hero model of military masculinity ; the war-rior hero needs both . Teamwork is required to enable group sur-vival in hostile environments . Adam Ballinger (1992) and SarahFord (1997) both make this point during their accounts of SpecialForces training when they describe the rotations for sleep, guardduty, and eating required during night patrol : one individuals' mis-takes can mean failure for the whole group on the course . Individ-ualism outside its appropriate context is discouraged : the warriorhero must support his or her mates . The importance of developingteamwork as a soldierly attribute is also evident in the quotationabove describing fieldcraft.

The key point here is the portrayal of teamwork as necessary("You'll look out for each other") but fun ; cooking, eating, andsleeping in a "buddy/buddy" team are activities associated withcamping as much as with military training . Thus the rural location

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here provides novelty and excitement, as well as being a place forsurvival against the elements . Survival of and in the great outdoorsis obviously important as a test separating the men from the boys,but it's also exciting and adventurous.

The Affective and Embodied Experience of Landscape

The warrior hero model of military masculinity also celebrates in-dividualism and lone, independent endeavor. Again, this is a qualityrequired by the soldier and trained for in the recruit . In the emo-tional challenges of week 9 of basic training, when adventuroustraining begins, the recruit's ability and aptitude for solitary workare developed and tested:

You travel to one of the camps in Wales, Scotland or on theSouth coast . Whilst much of the focus of the previous weekshas been on teamwork, this week is about your individualdevelopment. Through exercises such as hill walking, orien-teering, canoeing, and abseiling [rappelling], you'll face ex-citement, fear and challenge, and learn how to control anduse your emotions effectively. (ARG undated b:15)

The rural as rugged adventure playground is celebrated in the ac-companying photography, both as backdrop and as part of the nec-essary context for training in these activities . The latter is particu-larly striking in this example : the rural is the setting for theprovision of circumstances in which emotions-excitement, fear,and a sense of challenge-can be stimulated and then overcome byacquiring the necessary mental attributes . Again, visual images of ableak, open, inhospitable moorland landscape accompany the text;and again, I would argue, we can see the rural as the mediumthrough which specific values associated with the model of militarymasculinity are transmitted to the soldier.

The three emotions highlighted in the above quotation-excite-ment, fear, and the sense of challenge-figure strongly in soldiers'own accounts of the military training process . In his description ofthe selection procedure for recruitment into the Special Forces, forexample, Ballinger vividly illustrates the sense of excitement whenhe talks about survival training in terms of a boy 's adventure story(Ballinger 1992) . This discourse is highly gendered ; a high-rankingBritish general writes, in his memoirs, of organizing adventuroustraining weekends along Army lines for his son and friends, and de-fines them as strictly boys' activities from which his daughter is ex-cluded (de la Billiere 1994; also see Woodward 1998b).

Fear, the second emotion, is critical in training. A natural reac-tion to battle, fear must be conquered if the infantry soldier is toperform his tasks on the battlefield . For battle training, much of theArmy's justification for using large ranges rather than simulation

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rests on the need to inculcate soldiers with fear as well as an abilityto transcend physical discomfort . As one publicity video puts it:

If they are to perform the tasks we ask of them with anyconfidence, our soldiers must get dirty, wet, tired, andscared. This is the absolute bottom line of all military train-ing. (SSVC 1995)

Being afraid of the landscape and of one's own security in thatlandscape is a prominent theme in soldiers' accounts of their owntraining; again, conquering that fear is an essential step for thesewould-be warrior heroes . Fear is experienced but controlled ; in thismodel of military masculinity, the soldier admits fright but con-quers it to his advantage . As McNab's (1993) Bravo Two Zero illus-trates, the use of humor helps : sick jokes cracked at tense times al-low the book's heroes to laugh in the face of danger.

The third emotion (or, more accurately, attribute) that seems cen-tral in adventurous training is that of facing up to or meeting a chal-lenge, whether physical or mental . Ballinger articulates clearly thesense of sheer physical and emotional challenge faced by trainees,be they raw 17-year-old civilian recruits or hardened elite soldiers.He describes endless, punishing weekends spent out on the hills:

[W]e walked, climbed and ran in our squadrons for ninehours without a break . We rarely used paths and neverroads. We went from A to B, usually on a compass bearing.At the end, high up in the hills of North Wales, Scott [anofficer] stopped us and each man sat on his bergen [pack],grateful for the rest . We sat in a curve, two or three rowsdeep, around him. The wind whistled over the ridge, andour smocks, soaked with sweat, flapped against our skin.(Ballinger 1992:57)

Spence describes one such 30km hike at Penn-y-Fan in the BreconBeacons, Wales : "These things are done at a hell of a lick and are,frankly, gut-busters ." (1997 :14) . The recruits become exhausted,cold, wet, hungry, and injured, but still they carry on . And through-out, while superior officers urge them on, their identities as menare forged. The sheer physical challenge of route marches andmountain running is presented as a test of one's manhood . Thewarrior hero must be fit enough to conquer landscapes ; indeed, heis literally made in the landscape of the Army's training areas.

This process of meeting a physical challenge is coupled with thedevelopment of mental aggression sufficient to drive the soldierforward . Aggression, a hallmark of the warrior hero model of mili-tary masculinity, is cultivated on the wide moorland landscapes ofmilitary training areas . Ballinger recalls a conversation in which heand his fellow recruits realize that this is happening:

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"Are you enjoying the course, Avery?" I asked."I wouldn't say I was enjoying it, exactly," he said, . . . "but

it does give you a chance of distinguishing yourself phys-ically." [ . . .]

"Besides," he added, after a pause, "Selection has totallychanged my outlook on life ."

"What, already? In what way?""Bullshit," he said . "I can't take bullshit any more . Also I

am much more aggressive ." (1992 :65)

As I noted earlier in this paper, masculinities are often defined inopposition or relation to feminine or other masculine gender iden-tities. The oppositional ideas drawn into the construction of thismodel of military masculinity are revealing about what the warriorhero is and what he is not. For the warrior hero, to falter is female.Ballinger (1992) recalls endless insults shouted by superior officersto recruits unable to finish each element of the selection and train-ing course, couched in terms that equate failure with effeminacy."What's this? The Girl Guides?" shouts one . Aggressive heterosexu-ality accompanied by a fierce homophobia matches this fear of thefemale, and is also a hallmark of this model of military masculinity."Are you queer? Are you a fairy?" shouts the sergeant major at fal-tering recruits.

Femininity is despised when encountered in the landscape.Ballinger describes one recruit's failure to climb a mountain interms suggesting that seduction by the beauty of the landscape isthe cause of his downfall . Elsewhere in the book, he quotes a com-manding officer's description of a moonless nighttime Welsh moor-land: "as black as a witch's tit ." The labeling of attributes as femaleand the subsequent denial of their place in the soldier's lifeworldare key components of this model of military masculinity.

In summary, the rural constructed in military training is matchedto the masculinities exemplified in the strong, brave, hard warriorhero. Training takes place in dangerous territory. This is not agreen and pleasant idyll but a bleak, hostile wilderness of naturered in tooth and claw, where only the tough survive. The exceptionis the bucolic, pastoral rural, constructed by the Army as the objectof military protection ; the harsh, bleak rural is constructed as the lo-cation that makes the solider. By dominating this landscape throughmeeting the physical and emotional challenges that it poses, the re-cruit passes the selection process and the soldier is made . 2

2 The idea of wilderness is relative, of course . North American readers will equatewilderness with rather a different landscape (untouched, unpopulated, unfarmed)to the wilderness that British ruralities denote : bare, treeless moorland landscapesused only for extensive sheep farming, grouse shooting, and military training .

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The Significance of Rurality to Military Masculinity

Why is rurality so important (as I suggest it is) to the constructionof this model of military masculinity? Modern warfare, after all, is atechnological affair relying more fully on a soldier's ability to mas-ter the use of complex equipment. (This is itself a site for the cre-ation of further military masculinities, as described by Barrett1996.) With the exception of some activities in Northern Ireland,the military activities in which the British Army has been calledupon to engage over the past 50 years have been in environmentsfar removed from the uplands and heathlands where this trainingtakes place. Why, then, is rurality so important in the constructionof military masculinity?

I offer three explanations . First, as I have discussed here, rural lo-cations are chosen specifically to construct and mold the soldier inspecific ways . According to the Army, training takes place on cold,wet hillsides for a very good reason : officers believe that it producesbetter soldiers . Better soldiers, according to the value systems in op-eration in the British Army, are those who mirror at least in partthe attributes of the ideal type, the warrior hero.

Second, rural space is important as the primary location formuch military activity in Britain . Most of the land owned and/orused for military purposes in the United Kingdom, some 2 percentof the land area, is rural . It is remote from urban centers, sparselypopulated, devoid of pressures for urban development or intensiveagriculture (though farming does take place on training areas), ormarginal in some other way. Although many central military ad-ministrative functions are conducted in towns and cities (the Min-istry of Defence is located in the heart of London), the daily orga-nizational and training functions that go towards the maintenanceof a standing army are performed mostly in rural areas . The BritishArmy's status as a predominantly rural institution is a consequenceof its use of vast areas of rural estate. This use itself reflects histori-cal requirement and necessity, and is due to social requirements forthe majority of the population to remain undisturbed by the sightsand sounds of military activity, particularly training.

Third, a rural inheritance is woven into the very fabric of thearmed forces . It would never be possible (even if the suggestion weremade, which is unlikely) that these lands should be relinquished inexchange for training grounds more closely resembling the theatersof combat in which the Army engages . Safety, expense, and lack ofavailable territory preclude this . Also, it is possible that the landedelite, from which the officer class is still largely drawn, would be re-luctant to shift base to unknown territory (Strachan 1997).

Ultimately, discourses of militarism and rurality legitimate the lo-cation of soldiers in the British countryside . These discourses oper-

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ate on many levels within British (or often exclusively English) cul-tural life. For example, the rural is constructed as the legitimateplace for bearing arms; farmers' shotguns or soldiers' rifles contrastwith the illegitimate weapons of the urban criminal or terrorist . An-other example is the strong symbolic link between rurality and na-tionhood ("England is the country and the country is England," inStanley Baldwin's well-worn phrase) whereby national defense isconstructed with explicit reference to rural imagery . In short, therural as location and the rural as social construction are funda-mental to military cultures, and to the gender identities whichthose cultures produce.

The Consequences of Rural Military Masculinity

In conclusion I return to the question raised at the beginning ofthis paper, concerning the politics of this particular model of ruralmasculinity, by looking at the implications of this model both forrural communities and for women in the armed forces.

One set of implications is the impact of this military masculinityon daily life for those in rural communities dominated by the ma-jor Army field training centers and other large training establish-ments . In quantitative terms, this is not a huge problem for most ofthose living in rural Britain ; the areas affected are relatively small.Qualitatively, the impact of the military per se, rather than of mili-tary masculinities, is most often cause for comment . In areas domi-nated by this activity, however, concerns occasionally arise . One res-ident of a village next to the Otterburn Training Area in thenortheast of England expressed her fears for the village's socialstructure and "balance ." Otterburn was "too macho," she said, as aresult of the Army camp up the road with its transient militarypopulation . (Also see Jacky Tivers' 1998 examination of the socio-cultural attributes of a garrison town in her study of the militarylandscapes of Aldershot.)

The second set of implications concerns women in the armedforces. In this paper I have implied that the British Army is a mas-culine institution, its members molded by specific social construc-tions of masculinity. I have also presented the warrior hero as onehegemonic model of masculinity among many. This model may beopen to subversion as well as reproduction, but the point remainsthat it is dominant, it exists, and it is resolutely male.

Women thus are left in an unenviable position . There are only7,000 women in the Army, about 6 .4 percent of a total force ofabout 105,000 (GSS 1999) . An ongoing recruitment crisis in the1990s, combined with a social climate demanding equal employ-ment opportunities for women, resulted, in 1998, in the opening-up of many Army trades previously closed to women . This move hasincreased the intake of women to the Army, who currently make up

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14 percent of all new recruits, but on current estimates the propor-tion of women in the Army will not reach 10 percent until at least2006 (DASA 1998) . Military culture, however, is still dominated by amodel of military masculinity defined as aggressive towards womenand hostile to the idea of gender integration and cooperation . Thewarrior hero (and indeed the British Secretary of State for De-fence) does not want women in the troop ; gender integration incombat is viewed as detrimental to operational effectiveness(Robertson 1998).

Inducing cultural change within organizations is difficult at thebest of times, and the armed forces are not exception . As SarahFord notes in her account of training and action with the SpecialForces, there seemed little point in trying to challenge an in-grained, deeply misogynistic culture from the inside ; it seemed bet-ter to either ignore it or quietly subvert it (Ford 1997) . Further-more, most soldiers probably benefit from this model of militarymasculinity. By being selected for recruitment, and by succeedingin training, they are marked out as distinct . If the model of militarymasculinity is indeed hegemonic, then living up to that model insome way must bring privilege and status in the eyes of others.

Ultimately, however, this model drives an exclusionary politics-both in the way it shapes the organizational culture of the armedforces and in its consequences in marking out and claiming specificlandscapes as legitimate military spaces.

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