Conscientious objection and voluntary military service

[Dexta]

Sometimes the enemy need be killed. Sometimes the call to war is trumped up (NPI) and lies in evil manipulation. There was a time when the USA had a department of defence, not a department of war...some days have gone from some places, for now it seems. 

I will never celebrate violence - that is one of my highest goals. Nevertheless, if it were a war I really believed in, I would sign up and kill. 

No country will ever launch a nuclear weapon again IMO....unless...unless just perhaps, they are driven to absolute horrific penury and unleash hellfire with their bitter dying breath.

Conscientious objection still seems a lofty and righteous "disposition" to me nevertheless...but like a meditating Buddhist monk who eats only that food which falls into his lap....usually not practicable.

2c

[brewerb]

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've got no problems with COs in a conscript system if they can show evidence of a conscience.

[Minimalist]

We have the ultimate conscientious objector program.  It's called an all-volunteer military.  No one has to go if they don't want to.


-Or have to.

[SYZ]

One of the issues with a military draft and/or conscription is that
the Army can end up with numerous grunts or diggers who simply
don't want to be in any or all theatres of war.     It's far better to
have a force of fighting men who've volunteered to serve knowing
they may well have to kill other human beings.

If a potential conscriptee should register as a conscientious objector,
then there's absolutely no reason to force him into any one of the
armed services.  

Why waste taxpayers' money with—as the alternative—jailing him for
a couple of years?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't want to fight? Cool. Don't benefit from those who are willing.

Seriously, you can be in the military without killing people. I had a nice mix of combat and support jobs. Mixing it up helped the twenty roll bye.

[SYZ]

Don't want to fight? Cool. Don't benefit from those who are willing.

Seriously, you can be in the military without killing people. I had a nice mix of combat and support jobs. Mixing it up helped the twenty roll bye.

Well, yes of course, I understand that.  But for anybody volunteering
to join one of the armed services they—by the inherent by the nature
of the job—may well be expected to kill other people.     When you
join the army for example (at least in Australia) you can easily end up
in the infantry, with no say in the matter.  And it's the grunts who often
do the killing, virtually face to face.

[Rhythmcs]

I can't imagine wanting to be anything -other- than a grunt in a warzone. We've got all the damned guns?

[SYZ]

I can't imagine wanting to be anything -other- than a grunt in a warzone.  We've got all the damned guns?

Me? I'd be an army dropshort. Much safer.  

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I can't imagine wanting to be anything -other- than a grunt in a warzone.  We've got all the damned guns?

My brother was frequently in a war zone, especially when he was dropping Agent Orange on me. Never fired a shot. Thank Buddha.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

When I joined up the first, 14 hours after graduating from high school, they lined up all up in a long room. Then this Marine walked up in front of us.

"Count off by fours!" (Some of us could do that. He sorted the rest out.)

Then

"Everyone who said 'four' take two steps forward."

That include me. So I step forward. My hand went up.

"What's your damage, Mr.?"

"I enlisted in the Navy, sir!"

"I'm not a 'sir', I work for a living. Take two steps back. Man on his left, take two steps forward."

I heard him mutter "You son-of-a-bitch!"

I sometimes wondered if he made it through those two years. But not much.

[Reltzik]

I see it as more of a roll of the dice. Conscientious objection lets you pick and choose whether you'll kill at all, but isn't specific enough to let you pick and choose which wars you'll kill in. You don't get to decide whether you'll be fighting in a just war when you sign up. At best, you can gauge odds -- e.g. 80% chance you won't see combat at all, 15% chance it will be for some stupid immoral imperialist crap, 5% it will be something righteous worth risking your life for. Moral questions feel a lot foggier when you're dealing with vague, gut-level probability estimates instead of clear choices between outcomes.

(No military experience whatsoever, so my thoughts on the subject probably aren't even worth 2c.)

[Fireball]

I knew a couple of guys who volunteered and then chose conscientious objection to exit the Navy. I don't know the particulars of why, or how they did it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Good trick. Never heard of that working. I used to hunt deserters, sounds close.

[Minimalist]

Don't want to fight? Cool. Don't benefit from those who are willing.

Seriously, you can be in the military without killing people. I had a nice mix of combat and support jobs. Mixing it up helped the twenty roll bye.

Well, yes of course, I understand that.  But for anybody volunteering
to join one of the armed services they—by the inherent by the nature
of the job—may well be expected to kill other people.     When you
join the army for example (at least in Australia) you can easily end up
in the infantry, with no say in the matter.  And it's the grunts who often
do the killing, virtually face to face.

And it was the poor bastards driving the supply trucks who got blown up by the IEDs.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There are lots of people in military position who never have fired a shot. My brother eos as an E-8, one step below the highest enlisted rank. Thank Dai Butsu nobody gave him a gun. He was a mechanic, specializing in jet engines.

[SYZ]

If you were a conscientious objector to compulsory military service
here in Australia, you could expect to spend a couple of years in
jail cleaning toilets... oh, and being arse-reamed by Bubba.

[Minimalist]

I've seen estimates that in WWII only between 15 -20% of American servicemen ever fired a gun or had one fired at them.

That would include my FiL who was a courier driving a jeep to Battalion HQ in France when a couple of German shells exploded near the road he was using.  I'm sure they weren't aiming at him and if they were aiming at the road they missed that too.  The Wehrmacht in 1944 was not what it had been in 1940.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I've seen estimates that in WWII only between 15 -20% of American servicemen ever fired a gun or had one fired at them.

That would include my FiL who was a courier driving a jeep to Battalion HQ in France when a couple of German shells exploded near the road he was using.  I'm sure they weren't aiming at him and if they were aiming at the road they missed that too.  The Wehrmacht in 1944 was not what it had been in 1940.

To be fair, the US Army had a long tail and not many troops were actually in combat at all. Most were either supply, support/service, intel, and so on. Indeed, many American veterans of WWII never left American soil. They were training, recruiting, administering, ferrying airplanes and other sundry tasks that most people never think of when they think of a wartime army. We focused on logistics, so only about 10-15% of our uniformed personnel were in combat billets, and not all of them saw combat anyway.

As with your father-in-law, their service too is both respectable and appreciated.