Amidst increasing academic interest in “post-human” war technologies of surveillance and targeting, my dissertation conversely examines the ramifications of militarizing human beings as cultural technologies in wartime. I claim that “local” intermediaries are hired as embodied repositories of cultural knowledge to produce the soldier as an “insider” within the warzone. I focus on Iraqi former interpreters and contractors during the 2003 Iraq War who currently work as cultural role-players in pre-deployment simulations in the United States. In a new contribution to scholarship on war, my ethnography is staged within mock Middle Eastern villages constructed by the U.S. military across the woods and deserts of America to train soldiers deploying to the Middle East. Among mock mosques and markets, Iraqi role-players train U.S. soldiers by repetitively pretending to mourn, bargain, and die like the wartime adversary, ally, or proxy soldier they enact. Employed by the U.S. military in the post 9-11 “Cultural Turn” as exemplars of their cultures but banished to the peripheries as traitors by their own countrymen, and treated as potential spies by U.S. soldiers, these wartime intermediaries negotiate complex relationships to the referent as they simulate war. In my dissertation, I investigate the epistemological and affective dimensions of this wartime trend, as wartime intermediaries embody culture for training soldiers, but not on their own terms.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Aurel Croissant. "June 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-78). Also available in print.

This thesis will argue that the United States should attempt to increase its access to training opportunities in the Republic of the Philippines. In 2003, the Pentagon outlined plans which called for the realignment and transformation of U.S. forces across the globe. The planned realignment of U.S. forces in Northeast Asia necessitates access to new training areas in Southeast Asia. This thesis will identify why the United States should focus its efforts in the Philippines by identifying: 1) why U.S.-Philippine political and military relations have warmed over the past 15 years, as well as what both countries hope to gain from this positive trend; 2) how the expansion of existing, and establishment of new training opportunities in the Philippines will enhance U.S. force capabilities while also fostering the development of the AFP into a more capable, professional armed force; and 3) ways to mitigate possible fears of an increased U.S. presence in the area by focusing on the benefits which will arise from it. Ultimately, U.S. access to training area in the Philippines will add stability both to the Philippines and Southeast Asia as a whole, while simultaneously aiding in the Global War on Terror. / US Marine Corps (USMC) author.

"The problem investigated in this thesis is that of determining the impact of the disestablishment of Camp Edward Gary on the economy of the city of San Marcos, Texas...it is anticipated that this study may contribute two additional outcomes of value: the first is a test of certain ideas in economic theory pertaining to recessions; and the second is an evaluation of the data pertaining to the economy of small communities...the data presented in Chapter II and the summarization of that information in Chapter III lead to the inevitable conclusion that the deactivation of Camp Edward Gary caused a recession in the City of San Marcos, Texas, which was shared in varying degree by virtually every element of the economy...it is further concluded that the impact of the loss of the military community was modified to some degree by the beneficial effects of the growth in its educational institutions and the fact that the loss was shared, although in a lesser degree, by other communities in the general area." --leaves 4, 5, 79