The First Earth Battalion was the name proposed by Lieutenant Colonel

Jim Channon James B. Channon (September 20, 1939- September 10, 2017) was a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, New Age futurologist, and business consultant. He was primarily known for authoring the ''First Earth Battalion Operations Manual'' (1979, and later editi ...

, a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

who had served in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, for his

idea In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being ...

of a new

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

supersoldier The supersoldier (or super soldier) is a fictional concept soldier, often capable of operating beyond normal human limits or abilities either through genetic modification or cybernetic augmentation. Overview Supersoldiers are common in military ...

s to be organized along

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

lines. A book of the same name was published in 1982.

''The Men Who Stare at Goats''

According to the book ''

The Men Who Stare at Goats ''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004) is a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring ...

'' by

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

Jon Ronson Jon Ronson (born 10 May 1967) is a British-American journalist, author, and filmmaker whose works include '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'' (2001), ''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' (2004), and ''The Psychopath Test'' (2011). He has been desc ...

, Channon spent time in the 1970s with many of the people in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

credited with starting the

Human Potential Movement The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the be ...

, and subsequently wrote an operations manual for a First Earth Battalion. The manual was a 125-page mixture of drawings, graphs, maps, polemical essays, and point-by-point redesigns of every aspect of military life. Channon imagined a new battlefield uniform that would include pouches for

ginseng Ginseng () is the root of plants in the genus ''Panax'', such as Korean ginseng ('' P. ginseng''), South China ginseng ('' P. notoginseng''), and American ginseng ('' P. quinquefolius''), typically characterized by the presence of ginsenosides an ...

regulators, divining tools, foodstuffs to enhance

night vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vi ...

, and a loudspeaker that would automatically emit "

indigenous music Indigenous music is a term for the traditional music of the indigenous peoples of the world, that is, the music of an "original" ethnic group that inhabits any geographic region alongside more recent immigrants who may be greater in number. The ter ...

and words of peace." A movie based on the book—released in Autumn 2009—starring

George Clooney George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...

Ewan McGregor Ewan Gordon McGregor ( ; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British ...

Jeff Bridges Jeffrey Leon Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Bridges comes from a prominent a ...

and

Kevin Spacey Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...

, fictionalized the First Earth Battalion as the ''New Earth Army''.

Beliefs

Channon believed the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

could be the principal

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...

and

ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

basis on which

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

could harmonize in the name of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. He declared that the First Earth Battalion's primary allegiance was to the planet earth. Channon envisioned that the First Earth Battalion would organize itself informally: uniforms without uniformity, structure without status, and unity powered by diversity, and members would be

multicultural The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...

, with each

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

contributing to "rainbow power". He also proposed as a guiding principle that members of the First Earth Battalion seek nondestructive methods of

conflict resolution Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information abou ...

because their first

loyalty Loyalty, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another h ...

is to the planet.

Warrior Monk

Channon adopted the term " warrior monk" for potential members of the First Earth Battalion. Druckman, D., & Swets, J.A. (eds.). (1988). ''Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques.'' Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Credo

According to the book ''Mind Wars'' by Ronald McRae, each member of the First Earth Battalion would be sworn to uphold a credo of "high

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and guerrilla

gurus Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverential ...

": * I have the capacity and therefore the duty to contribute to the development of myself, my associates, and our planet, simultaneously, now! * I will organize a self-supporting high commando group that will create and perform evolutionary breakthrough actions on behalf of people and planet. One people, one planet. * I will then pass on this concept to others who are capable of generating further self-organizing commando teams. * I will await the time when my group can connect naturally with others at higher and higher levels of awareness and performance — the Natural Guard.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

First Earth Battalion Field Manual (text only)

PDF
of original First Earth Battalion manual New Age organizations Applied ethics Psychological warfare Pseudoscience