Stan Goff
Encyclopedia
Stan Goff is a writer
, activist, and United States Army
veteran
having served from 1970 to 1996. He has been an anti-imperialist activist, feminist, socialist, and is now a Christian and a pacifist. He is the co-author of the weblog Feral Scholar, along with D. A. Clark.
He is the author of the books Hideous Dream (2000), Full-Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century (2004) and Sex & War (2006). He has also been a contributor to Counterpunch and Huffington Post.
in 1970-71 during the Vietnam war
. He served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade as an infantryman, after which he was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC following a bout with drug-resistant malaria. In 1973, he was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant.
During a break in service, he attended college at the University of Arkansas in Monticello and married Elizabeth Mackall. Their daughter, Elan Mackall Goff, was born September 1, 1976. In 1977, he enlisted again in the Army and was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) as a Private First Class
, re-earning his sergeant's stripes in 1979. That same year, he volunteered for Ranger School
, and after graduation, was reassigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion
on Fort Lewis, WA.
After two years with the 2d Ranger Battalion, Goff earned the rank of Staff Sergeant, and reenlisted on condition of reassignment to the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama working as a small unit tactics instructor. He volunteered for the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (SFOD-D
) during that assignment. After unit selection and training, Goff participated in operations in Guatemala
, El Salvador
, and Grenada
(see Operation Urgent Fury).
In December, 1986, Goff was relieved from Delta with the rank of Sergeant First Class, based on an accusation that he denies related to having taken a woman into the Ambassador to El Salvador's residence for sex. He admits, however, that during the time of the alleged encounter, he was walking around the block with a local prostitute to smoke marijuana with her.
He was reassigned to the staff and faculty at the United States MIlitary Academy at West Point. He served as the NCOIC
of the Service Orientation Course, and developed the Ranger Orientation Program that selected cadets to attend Ranger School during their Junior-Senior summer. He permitted his enlistment to expire in 1987 - working for a time training SWAT teams for the Department of Energy Y-12 nuclear weapon facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
He rejoined the US Army in 1988, as a Staff Sergeant, and was assigned to the 1st Ranger Battalion
.
Goff then volunteered for Special Forces
training in 1989, and became a Special Operations Medical Sergeant assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. While with 7th Group, he performed training and operational missions in Central and South America. Many of these missions were presented officially to the public as "counter-narcotics" operations supporting the War on Drugs
. Goff later wrote that this dissonance was formative in his political shift to the left.
In 1990, he was divorced from Elizabeth Mackall. He was re-married in 1992 to Sherry Long in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He has three step-children from the marriage: Jessie Hobbs, Jayme Hobbs and Jeremy Hobbs.
Goff was reassigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment
as a Special Operations Medical Sergeant in 1993, and was attached to 3rd Ranger Battalion as part of Task Force Ranger for the operation in Mogadishu, Somalia. Goff was redeployed to Fort Benning before the infamous Bakara firefight after a dispute with a Ranger captain that verged upon violence. Not long after, he was promoted to Master Sergeant, effectively changing his job description from SF Medic to SF Operations Sergeant.
Goff was then reassigned back to Fort Bragg, to the 3rd Special Forces Group, where he was given the task of running a Special Forces team, called an A-Detachment (in this case, Operational Detachment - A (ODA) 354, a military free-fall parachute specialty team). The story of his time with this team, up to and including his retirement from the Army in February 1996 (with special emphasis on Operation Restore Democracy in Haiti in 1994) is recounted in detail in his first book, Hideous Dream - A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti (Soft Skull Press, 2000).
. He joined the Communist Party USA
for a brief period, but left the party in response to what he describes as the demand for "ideological conformity," and his belief that the party was hostile to feminism. This is a criticism he levels frequently at the entire left, which he describes as "male-dominated, and tokenizing of women.".
In 1996, Goff secured a job as organizing director for Democracy South, a non-profit organization which did research and advocacy on money-and-politics in the South, and stayed there for the next five and a half years.
In 2001, he did a short stint as the military technical adviser for the Arnold Schwarzenegger
action film
Collateral Damage
, which he describes as one of the most miserable jobs in his life, and for which he publicly apologized after the film was altered, in the wake of 9-11, into what Goff called "yet another male revenge fantasy."
Throughout this post-military period, he remained in touch with Haitian political issues, and developed a close working relationship with Katharine Kean, a film maker who has worked in Haiti for decades, and the political cadres of the National Popular Party , a left party in Haiti with a peasant popular base. He has returned to Haiti dozens of times since then, and has written extensively on the political developments there.
After the September 11 attacks and the resulting push for war, Goff was in demand as a public speaker. His military career and his opposition to the coming war gave him a degree of immunity from many criticisms made against anti-war forces.
He also became involved with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization
around the same time, drawn primarily by the organization's analysis of Black nationalism
, and the organization's stated goal of the "refoundation" of the American Left
. In the process of writing a column called "Military Matters" for the organization, he began his second book, Full Spectrum Disorder - The Military in the New American Century, (Soft Skull Press, 2004).
" president) remarked "Bring 'em on" during an interview, Goff wrote a response for the on-line journal CounterPunch
, called "Bring 'em on?". He received thousands of emails in response to the CounterPunch article, many of them from veterans and military families. He contacted Dennis O'Neil
, a colleague in New York, and told him about the supportive reaction from vets and military families. They then contacted Dave Cline, the president of Veterans For Peace
, along with Nancy Lessin and Charlie Anderson
of the nascent group Military Families Speak Out
, and within a week a campaign had been inaugurated called "Bring Them Home Now!". He has also worked as an organizational development consultant with Iraq Veterans Against the War
.
After the publication of Full Spectrum Disorder, Goff became interested in the connections between militarism
and the social construction of masculinity
. He studied feminist writings and theory over the next two years in the process of writing his third book, Sex & War (Lulu Press
, 2006).
In March 2006 Goff helped to organize the Veterans and Survivors March of the Iraq Veterans Against the War
, Veterans For Peace
, Military Families Speak Out
, and Gold Star Families for Peace
to call attention to the cost of the war in Iraq and its impact on relief efforts along the Gulf coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
After the Veterans and Survivors March, Goff pulled back from public engagement and worked as a landscape helper, an apprentice stonemason, and a home deconstruction crew with Wake County (NC) Habitat for Humanity.
He took up a study of the historical Jesus in 2006, and from that study gained an interest in theology. In 2008, he was baptized and is a professed Christian and pacifist, eschewing political labels like socialist or anarchist. In 2009, he wrote a tract entitled "Why I won't call myself progressive," that reflected the influences of Christian writers John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Amy Laura Hall, and Ivan Illich. He is an advocate of non-coercive, community re-localization efforts and what he calls "food praxis," or practical activities that promote food sovereignty.
Goff resided with his wife, Sherry, for a year - 2009-2010 - in Grecia, Costa Rica; and now lives in Michigan.
Now in retirement, Goff is a freelance writer and co-owns and operates an online magazine, Family Made Fresh, with his daughter, Elan Potter.
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, activist, and United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
veteran
Veteran
A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
having served from 1970 to 1996. He has been an anti-imperialist activist, feminist, socialist, and is now a Christian and a pacifist. He is the co-author of the weblog Feral Scholar, along with D. A. Clark.
He is the author of the books Hideous Dream (2000), Full-Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century (2004) and Sex & War (2006). He has also been a contributor to Counterpunch and Huffington Post.
Military career
Goff was sent to VietnamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
in 1970-71 during the Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. He served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade as an infantryman, after which he was reassigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC following a bout with drug-resistant malaria. In 1973, he was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant.
During a break in service, he attended college at the University of Arkansas in Monticello and married Elizabeth Mackall. Their daughter, Elan Mackall Goff, was born September 1, 1976. In 1977, he enlisted again in the Army and was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) as a Private First Class
Private First Class
Private First Class is a military rank held by junior enlisted persons.- Singapore :The rank of Private First Class in the Singapore Armed Forces lies between the ranks of Private and Lance-Corporal . It is usually held by conscript soldiers midway through their national service term...
, re-earning his sergeant's stripes in 1979. That same year, he volunteered for Ranger School
Ranger School
The United States Army Ranger School is an intense 61-day combat leadership course oriented towards small-unit tactics. It has been called the "toughest combat course in the world" and "is the most physically and mentally demanding leadership school the Army has to offer". The course is conducted...
, and after graduation, was reassigned to the 2nd Ranger Battalion
2nd Ranger Battalion
2nd Ranger Battalion is the name of two distinct units of United States Army Rangers. The first was part of the six Ranger battalions of the Second World War...
on Fort Lewis, WA.
After two years with the 2d Ranger Battalion, Goff earned the rank of Staff Sergeant, and reenlisted on condition of reassignment to the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama working as a small unit tactics instructor. He volunteered for the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (SFOD-D
Delta Force
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta is one of the United States' secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. Commonly known as Delta Force, Delta, or The Unit, it was formed under the designation 1st SFOD-D, and is officially referred to by the Department of Defense...
) during that assignment. After unit selection and training, Goff participated in operations in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, and Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
(see Operation Urgent Fury).
In December, 1986, Goff was relieved from Delta with the rank of Sergeant First Class, based on an accusation that he denies related to having taken a woman into the Ambassador to El Salvador's residence for sex. He admits, however, that during the time of the alleged encounter, he was walking around the block with a local prostitute to smoke marijuana with her.
He was reassigned to the staff and faculty at the United States MIlitary Academy at West Point. He served as the NCOIC
Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge
The designation Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge, usually abbreviated to NCOIC , signifies an individual in the enlisted ranks of a military unit who has limited command authority over others in the unit....
of the Service Orientation Course, and developed the Ranger Orientation Program that selected cadets to attend Ranger School during their Junior-Senior summer. He permitted his enlistment to expire in 1987 - working for a time training SWAT teams for the Department of Energy Y-12 nuclear weapon facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
He rejoined the US Army in 1988, as a Staff Sergeant, and was assigned to the 1st Ranger Battalion
1st Ranger Battalion
The 1st Ranger Battalion is an elite special operations unit of the US Army that is currently based at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, United States....
.
Goff then volunteered for Special Forces
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...
training in 1989, and became a Special Operations Medical Sergeant assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. While with 7th Group, he performed training and operational missions in Central and South America. Many of these missions were presented officially to the public as "counter-narcotics" operations supporting the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
. Goff later wrote that this dissonance was formative in his political shift to the left.
In 1990, he was divorced from Elizabeth Mackall. He was re-married in 1992 to Sherry Long in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He has three step-children from the marriage: Jessie Hobbs, Jayme Hobbs and Jeremy Hobbs.
Goff was reassigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment
United States Army Rangers
United States Army Rangers are elite members of the United States Army. Rangers have served in recognized U.S. Army Ranger units or have graduated from the U.S. Army's Ranger School...
as a Special Operations Medical Sergeant in 1993, and was attached to 3rd Ranger Battalion as part of Task Force Ranger for the operation in Mogadishu, Somalia. Goff was redeployed to Fort Benning before the infamous Bakara firefight after a dispute with a Ranger captain that verged upon violence. Not long after, he was promoted to Master Sergeant, effectively changing his job description from SF Medic to SF Operations Sergeant.
Goff was then reassigned back to Fort Bragg, to the 3rd Special Forces Group, where he was given the task of running a Special Forces team, called an A-Detachment (in this case, Operational Detachment - A (ODA) 354, a military free-fall parachute specialty team). The story of his time with this team, up to and including his retirement from the Army in February 1996 (with special emphasis on Operation Restore Democracy in Haiti in 1994) is recounted in detail in his first book, Hideous Dream - A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti (Soft Skull Press, 2000).
Radicalization and activism
Goff became politically active almost immediately, and took up the study of MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. He joined the Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
for a brief period, but left the party in response to what he describes as the demand for "ideological conformity," and his belief that the party was hostile to feminism. This is a criticism he levels frequently at the entire left, which he describes as "male-dominated, and tokenizing of women.".
In 1996, Goff secured a job as organizing director for Democracy South, a non-profit organization which did research and advocacy on money-and-politics in the South, and stayed there for the next five and a half years.
In 2001, he did a short stint as the military technical adviser for the Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
Collateral Damage
Collateral Damage (film)
Collateral Damage is a 2002 American action film that tells the story of a Los Angeles firefighter, Gordon Brewer , who looks to avenge his son's and wife's deaths at the hands of a guerrilla commando, by traveling to Colombia and facing his family's killers.-Plot:A bomb is detonated in the plaza...
, which he describes as one of the most miserable jobs in his life, and for which he publicly apologized after the film was altered, in the wake of 9-11, into what Goff called "yet another male revenge fantasy."
Throughout this post-military period, he remained in touch with Haitian political issues, and developed a close working relationship with Katharine Kean, a film maker who has worked in Haiti for decades, and the political cadres of the National Popular Party , a left party in Haiti with a peasant popular base. He has returned to Haiti dozens of times since then, and has written extensively on the political developments there.
After the September 11 attacks and the resulting push for war, Goff was in demand as a public speaker. His military career and his opposition to the coming war gave him a degree of immunity from many criticisms made against anti-war forces.
He also became involved with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization — known in Spanish as Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad — was formed in 1985 as many of the Maoist-oriented groups formed in the United States New Communist Movement of the 1970s were shrinking or collapsing...
around the same time, drawn primarily by the organization's analysis of Black nationalism
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
, and the organization's stated goal of the "refoundation" of the American Left
American Left
The American Left consists of individuals and groups, including socialists, communists and anarchists, that have sought fundamental change in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Although left-wing ideologies came to the United States in the 19th century, there...
. In the process of writing a column called "Military Matters" for the organization, he began his second book, Full Spectrum Disorder - The Military in the New American Century, (Soft Skull Press, 2004).
Activism against the Iraq War
In 2003, after President George W. Bush (whom Goff referred to as a "de factoDe facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
" president) remarked "Bring 'em on" during an interview, Goff wrote a response for the on-line journal CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, called "Bring 'em on?". He received thousands of emails in response to the CounterPunch article, many of them from veterans and military families. He contacted Dennis O'Neil
Dennis O'Neil
Dennis J. "Denny" O'Neil is an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of books until his retirement....
, a colleague in New York, and told him about the supportive reaction from vets and military families. They then contacted Dave Cline, the president of Veterans For Peace
Veterans for Peace
Veterans For Peace is a United States organization founded in 1985. Made up of male and female US military veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and other conflicts, as well as peacetime veterans, the group works to promote alternatives to war.-Foundation:The...
, along with Nancy Lessin and Charlie Anderson
Charlie Anderson
Charlie Alexander Anderson is an American football linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2004 NFL Draft...
of the nascent group Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out is a US based anti-Iraq war group.Military Families Speak Out was founded by two military families in November, 2002 to speak out against the planned US invasion of Iraq to try to prevent the invasion....
, and within a week a campaign had been inaugurated called "Bring Them Home Now!". He has also worked as an organizational development consultant with Iraq Veterans Against the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War is an advocacy group of active-duty United States military personnel, Iraq War veterans, Afghanistan War veterans, and other veterans who have served since the September 11, 2001 attacks who are opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq...
.
After the publication of Full Spectrum Disorder, Goff became interested in the connections between militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
and the social construction of masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
. He studied feminist writings and theory over the next two years in the process of writing his third book, Sex & War (Lulu Press
Lulu.com
Lulu is a company offering publishing, printing, and distribution services with headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since their founding in 2002, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by creators in over 200 countries and territories and adds 20,000 new titles to their catalogue a month...
, 2006).
In March 2006 Goff helped to organize the Veterans and Survivors March of the Iraq Veterans Against the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Iraq Veterans Against the War is an advocacy group of active-duty United States military personnel, Iraq War veterans, Afghanistan War veterans, and other veterans who have served since the September 11, 2001 attacks who are opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq...
, Veterans For Peace
Veterans for Peace
Veterans For Peace is a United States organization founded in 1985. Made up of male and female US military veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and other conflicts, as well as peacetime veterans, the group works to promote alternatives to war.-Foundation:The...
, Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out is a US based anti-Iraq war group.Military Families Speak Out was founded by two military families in November, 2002 to speak out against the planned US invasion of Iraq to try to prevent the invasion....
, and Gold Star Families for Peace
Gold Star Families for Peace
Gold Star Families for Peace is a United States-based organization founded in January 2005 by individuals who lost family members in the Iraq War, and are thus entitled to display a Gold Star. It is considered an offshoot of Military Families Speak Out...
to call attention to the cost of the war in Iraq and its impact on relief efforts along the Gulf coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
After the Veterans and Survivors March, Goff pulled back from public engagement and worked as a landscape helper, an apprentice stonemason, and a home deconstruction crew with Wake County (NC) Habitat for Humanity.
He took up a study of the historical Jesus in 2006, and from that study gained an interest in theology. In 2008, he was baptized and is a professed Christian and pacifist, eschewing political labels like socialist or anarchist. In 2009, he wrote a tract entitled "Why I won't call myself progressive," that reflected the influences of Christian writers John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Amy Laura Hall, and Ivan Illich. He is an advocate of non-coercive, community re-localization efforts and what he calls "food praxis," or practical activities that promote food sovereignty.
Goff resided with his wife, Sherry, for a year - 2009-2010 - in Grecia, Costa Rica; and now lives in Michigan.
Now in retirement, Goff is a freelance writer and co-owns and operates an online magazine, Family Made Fresh, with his daughter, Elan Potter.