Conscientious Objector Numbers Are Small but Growing by Laurie Goodstein
When Stephen E. Funk enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves last fall, going to war was the last thing on his mind. He was 19 and, as he put it, adrift after a year at college when a recruiter sold him on the Marines by talking up the leadership skills, camaraderie and confidence he would learn in the armed forces.
But while in boot camp at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, Mr. Funk said, he began to feel like "a hypocrite" when he was ordered to shout out "Kill!" as the recruits drilled.
And when his unit was mobilized for Iraq in February, he said, he wanted no part of it. "I don't think the president's pursuit of this war is a very moral or godly thing," he says.
Mr. Funk did not report for duty and now is among a small number of military members who are seeking discharges as conscientious objectors.
With the military an all-volunteer force, the numbers are nothing like during the Vietnam War, when the nation relied on a draft.
Still, with recruiting campaigns advertising the promise of job skills, tuition benefits and discipline, some members of the military now say there was little frank talk about the realities of combat.
"War wasn't a part of it at all for me. I never even thought about it," said Mr. Funk, from Seattle, who plans to turn himself in for punishment today at his base in San Jose, Calif., for being absent without leave. "I thought it would be like Boy Scouts."
He is not the only one having second thoughts. Antiwar groups say that an increasing number of military personnel are calling antiwar hot lines to say they do not want to fight in Iraq for religious, moral or political reasons. The military also reports that the number of enlisted people it has discharged as conscientious objectors, while few, has risen slightly in the past six months while troops were being mobilized for the war.
The law allows members of the military to obtain conscientious objector status if they can prove that during their training or service they developed a deeply held objection to all wars. If their objector application is accepted - a lengthy process that requires interviews, essays and letters from character witnesses - they can either be reassigned to noncombatant duties or discharged.
Although the military is now operating under wartime orders under which no discharges are permitted, it has been surprisingly willing to release those claiming conscientious objector status, according to the objectors and their lawyers.
The Army reports that it granted 5 conscientious objector discharges this January, compared with 17 in all of 2002 and 9 in 2001. In February, the Army received six new applications for conscientious objector status, all still under review.
The Marine Corps says it discharged two members on conscientious objection grounds in January and February this year, compared with two in all of 2002. The Air Force received seven such applications in the past six months, approving four and rejecting one. Two are still under review. The Navy granted approximately 10 conscientious objector discharges in 2001 and in 2002. So far this year it has approved three and is considering three more.
Michael D. Sudbury, a former Army reservist in Sandy, Utah, was discharged the day before his unit was deployed - the same day he held a news conference to publicize his intention to apply for a conscientious objector discharge.
"Forcing our way on these people in Iraq is not going to make the world better," Mr. Sudbury says he told his superiors.
While the numbers of people who have received conscientious objector status are small, representatives of peace groups, churches and military support networks say that starting last fall they began experiencing an increase in calls from members of the military voicing moral concerns about the war.
Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator at the Center on Conscience and War <http://www.nisbco.org/>, in Washington, said that before last year, he might receive one or two such calls a month. Starting in January, Mr. Galvin said, he began receiving one or two a day.
"A lot of the people who are calling now actually figured out some time ago, even in basic training, that they had problems with being part of violence or warfare," he said. "But they felt they made a commitment, and didn't expect they were really going to go to war." He added, "Suddenly they get orders to go to war, and that compromise they should probably have never made is catching up with them."
Mr. Funk, the Marine reservist, says he shared his misgivings with several military chaplains. He asked them what his Catholic faith had to say about war. He says the chaplains told him he would soon adjust.
After basic training ended last November, he learned about conscientious objection from the Internet and from relatives who he said had always insisted that such a gentle young man should never have enlisted in the Marine reserves.
He says he was in the process of writing his application in February when his reserve company received orders to deploy. He did not report.
His lawyer, Stephen Collier, a member of the National Lawyer's Guild Military Law Task Force <http://www.nlg.org/mltf/> in San Francisco, said he expected that Mr. Funk would serve 30 days of punishment, performing some kind of desk duty, before the Marine Corps would process his application.
Mr. Collier said of his client: "He's someone that the recruiter made a mistake on. He's not really fit for Marine Corps life."
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0401-10.htm> & <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/01/international/worldspecial/01OBJE.html> *****