This is the story of the First Earth Battalion. The story begins in 1979, at the height of the Cold War. The U.S. Army was demoralized after Vietnam. Recruits were undisciplined, and morale was subterranean. Enter Lieutenant Colonel James "Jim" Channon, a highly decorated Vietnam vet.
Channon traveled to 150 "human potential" centers across America—Esalen, est, Werner Erhard, the Whole Earth Catalog crowd. He returned with a 130-page report titled The First Earth Battalion Operational Manual . It was part Sun Tzu, part Star Trek , and part Mother Earth News . The Men Who Stare At Goats
Nevertheless, the story spread through the unit as a success. "The Men Who Stare at Goats" became a badge of honor. This is where the story stops being a comedy. This is the story of the First Earth Battalion
This wasn't a sci-fi novel. It was a formal military briefing. To the astonishment of rational officers, the Army brass didn't laugh Channon out of the Pentagon. They funded it. The unit was known as the "Remote Viewing" program, later codenamed Project Stargate , based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Army was demoralized after Vietnam
The absurdity of the 1970s—meditation in the jungle—had curdled into the brutality of the 2000s: a Global War on Terror where prisoners were hooded, shackled, and forced to stare at walls for 72 hours.