Military gives conscientious objectors a way out
• Former Marine is still fighting against war
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
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| Hawai'i-based Marine Jeff Paterson refused to board a Saudi-bound plane during the first Gulf War. He was dishonorably discharged.
Advertiser Library photo • August 29, 1990 |
"It was a moral imperative," said the 28-year-old Army intelligence veteran who now lives in Honolulu and spends her free time helping others navigate the myriad forms required to be released from military service. "There was no choice."
Few soldiers and civilians know military law provides for the discharge of conscientious objectors: people with a powerful, abiding belief against training for war or waging it.
However, it's not an easy option, and the military doesn't broadly publicize the right to apply for this status.
Jeff Paterson, the Hawai'i-based Marine who made headlines a dozen years ago for refusing to take part in the first Gulf War, said he first learned about the possibility of filing for such status while at a lawyer's office the morning before his August 1990 press conference. By then, he'd been in the Marines for four years.
"The military sees the whole conscientious objector route as a safety valve, to get rid of the moral wing nuts among them," said Paterson, who now lives in San Francisco.
He spent two months in the brig after refusing to board a plane bound for Saudi Arabia and was later discharged dishonorably.
Conscientious objection does have deep roots. A paid exemption allowed by colonial militias, conscientious objection evolved into a legal right by the time of the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln let objectors work in hospitals and teach freed slaves.
Early objectors were largely from pacifist religions, such as the Quakers and Mennonites, but 20th-century court decisions opened the gate for requests on profound moral grounds as well. The present rules date from 1971.
During the Vietnam War era, objectors were mostly potential draftees.
Today, the Army is all-volunteer, and yet objectors still turn up. Their numbers, though small, spike in wartime. They reached a decade high of 111 in 1991.
Last year, the military services granted objector status to 28 people. The Army alone reports approving 17 of 23 applications.
Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Department of Defense spokeswoman, said there is no spike in applications this year. However, the GI Rights Hotline, a 9-year-old project of anti-war groups, reports 3,582 inquiries in January — a monthly record — about conscientious objection and other military rights.
About 20 percent are people wanting information about becoming objectors, said Teresa Panepinto, program coordinator for GI Rights in San Francisco.
She said there are "absolutely" more applicants,. She estimated about 700 of the inquiries were about applying for objector status.
"The phone has definitely been ringing off the hook," she said.
The phone's ringing off the hook, too, for Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator at the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., an interfaith organization founded in 1940.
Galvin questions the accuracy of the claims that the numbers filing for conscientious-objector status aren't up.
"We've filed ... (freedom of information requests) for statistics," he said. "The Marines (at one time) said there were none, but we know there are some, because we helped them get out."
During the first Gulf War, "our phones were ringing nonstop," he said. "Recently, we've had a dramatic increase in calls."
"The government's definition is someone opposed to participation in war based on religious, ethical or moral beliefs," said Panepinto. "The key here is that the soldier needs to prove that his or her beliefs have changed since entering the military."
That was the case for Cole, a fellow in the East-West Center's Asian-Pacific leadership program who now researches the effectiveness of sustainable and responsible corporate investment.
She joined the Army after working a few years after college, wanting to give something back to her country. She had identified herself on recruiting materials initially as a Buddhist, but she doesn't attend Zen Buddhist services, since her form of spirituality follows the rule, "Don't get God indoors."
If a conscientious objector claims that he has always been against war, then the military can counter that he enlisted under false pretenses. On the forms Cole filled out, she was asked if she was a conscientious objector. She wrote "No."
Her change of heart began during M16 rifle training. She was on an indoor range in August 2000, without ear protection — a mistake, but she wasn't aware of it at the time.
She remembers a deafening sound so loud, she curled up into a fetal position.
"The room was shaking," recalled Cole, who was careful of her hearing to begin with, because she suffers from 70 percent hearing loss in one ear and was admitted to military service on a medical waiver. "It was a cacophony of sound."
As she tried to return to duty after being given ear protection, a fellow walked by and said, by way of encouragement: "Come on! You're a killer!"
"That was the start," Cole said. "... I thought, 'That's not who you are.' "
She wasn't able to finish that day, and couldn't reconcile the thought that she could be a killer, despite the training cry she and others would chant: "Blood! Blood makes grass grow!"
Later, her decision was cinched when she visited Hiroshima with her family, who had come to visit her while she was stationed in Japan. Seeing the mementos of those killed in the atomic-bomb attack brought her face to face with the reality that she was "part of the most destructive force on Earth."
She spoke with her chaplain, who agreed that she was a good candidate for discharge as a conscientious objector, and began winding her way through the red tape.
"I don't think there is anything cowardly about standing up and saying, 'I won't be a part of this,' " Galvin says.
But critics charge that a person who volunteers for the military and discovers an aversion to war is being disingenuous at best and cowardly at worst.
"Anyone in the military who has signed up to protect our country and now doesn't want to do so is doing a grave disservice to this country and to their fellow soldiers," says Jason Crawford, founder of Patriots for the Defense of America, an Internet-based group that supports attacking Iraq.
The government does recognize that views can change over the course of military service.
Those who can prove a religious, ethical or moral opposition to all wars may apply for a discharge or transfer to a noncombat job as a conscientious objector.
But the criteria for such cases are difficult. For example, the Air Force's policy governing application and approval runs to 20 pages. Those who don't receive such status but refuse to fight can face penalties ranging from prison to court-martial and dishonorable discharge.
In the case of Cole's application for Army conscientious-objector status, the process required essays and three interviews (with a chaplain, a psychiatrist, and the commanding officer).
Explained Panepinto: "Oftentimes it's lengthy — six months to a year. What we have been seeing through (the recent) mobilizations is that the military seems to be processing at much faster rate, closer to three to six months."
If the objection is just to the Iraq war, that's not a reason to be granted the conscientious-objector discharge, Panepinto said: "Clearly, you can't pick or choose your wars."
"What we tell folks, if you think there's a war you would fight in, what would that be?" said Galvin. "If you come to the conclusion that in reality, there is no such war and none exists, then you are opposed to war in any form. ...
"A lot of folks don't really think about it until they're in a situation they're in, faced with the war ahead of them."
The obvious question — "If you were a conscientious objector, why join the military?" — hasn't an easy answer, he added: "A lot of folks don't think about it. With COs, we're dealing with something in the military experience that caused them to change."
Often, bayonet training will hit some people hard, Galvin said.
"It's one thing in the abstract, to fight to defend your country. It's another to be worked up into this savage hysteria. ... For the most part, people in the military don't have a problem talking about how abstract values weren't a problem until they came face to face with it."
Opposition to a war in Iraq is a trickle compared to what it was in the Vietnam era.
Pro- and anti-war sentiment divided the country during the Vietnam War.
From 1965 to 1973, 2.15 million Americans served in Vietnam. About 170,000 Americans earned status as conscientious objectors. Many burned their draft cards. At least 40,000 fled the country, and others were sent to jail.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to many war resisters.
Peace activists from the '60s are among those now advising people in the military on how to follow their consciences and avoid war.
The Associated Press and USA Today contributed to this report.
Reach religion and ethics writer Mary Kaye Ritz at 525-8035 or mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com.
• • •
Former Marine is still fighting against war
In August 1990, Jeff Paterson, an artilleryman stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, sat down in protest on the airstrip when his unit was ordered to ship out to Saudi Arabia. He became the first person to refuse to participate in the first Persian Gulf War.
"People took turns yelling at me: my commanding officer, my gunnery sergeant, my immediate sergeant in charge of getting me on the plane," he told the Associated Press.
Ultimately, Paterson was found to have violated orders, and his conscientious-objector application gave him no right under military rules to disobey them. He was locked in a brig for two months and eventually discharged dishonorably, without having achieved official conscientious-objector status. He now edits a newsletter for military resisters.
Reached in San Francisco a few hours before the second Gulf War began, Paterson, now 34, is an organizer with the Not in Our Name anti-war project. His immediate plans? To be arrested "after the war starts — that's my general plan," he said. It would be the first time in seven years, and the third time his political beliefs would land him in handcuffs.
When he was 18, he joined the Marines "to be a bad-ass fighting machine." Through deployments to Central America, South Korea and the Philippines, he began questioning the government's role.
"I figured when I got to Hawai'i, I'd do a few easy months, move on with my life," Paterson said.
That wasn't to be. He met activists here, including Hawaiians protesting the use of Kaho'olawe as a Navy bombing target, and decided to speak out publicly against war.
The rest of the story made headlines.
He applied for conscientious-objector status, but was denied "because in the end, the military believed I wasn't sincere enough," he said.
"I was expecting to be turned down because of my open defiance of orders, but the legal status was secondary. I wasn't going to play any part of ... (the first Gulf War) whatsoever."
Now, he said, his role in life "is to do everything I can to oppose war, be a voice for peace and justice in the world. For those who have similar views, we're really busy right now. We will stand and say this is wrong."
— Mary Kaye Ritz
