|
Where Have All the CO Soldiers Gone? by Robert W. Norris
These and other acts of resistance from within the military are welcome
and encouraging news to this old expatriate conscientious objector from
the Vietnam War. For the Iraq war generation, the Internet has become
the new indispensable underground news source, enabling antiwar groups
and individuals to organize, exchange information, and spread their
stories worldwide in a manner and speed undreamed of in my day. I have
to admit to an obsessive addiction to searching such sites as Citizen
Soldier, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out,
SNAFU, as well as older ones like Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
Veterans for Peace, War Resisters League, and several others in an
attempt to keep up with what's happening. I often send letters of
encouragement to these new conscientious objectors. I want them to know
that they're not alone, that their actions are admirable and right, that
they may suffer abuse, indignity, harassment, and perhaps even ostracism
and imprisonment, but in the long run their lives will turn out all right.
I can certainly empathize with the loneliness, the weight, and the
enormity of what goes into making the decision to resist. In your late
teens and early twenties, you are seldom able to articulate the full
depth of your feelings, morals, and values. You are scared. You feel
weak and not up to the task. You are often full of self doubt. You know
the decision will change the course of the rest of your life. It changed
mine irrevocably.
Late in 1969 I became a conscientious objector from within the Air Force
after being hoodwinked by a recruiter into believing I'd never have to
carry a gun. Country bumpkin that I was at the age of eighteen, I bought
that lie hook, line, and sinker. Turned out I had to undergo combat
training for the job of guarding B-52 bombers. Not long after Kent
State, I got my order to Southeast Asia. By that time, I was involved
with a few GI "heads" who were putting out an antiwar paper. I refused
my order and was court-martialed. My legal counsel was an antiwar man
who'd been drafted after he completed his law degree and decided to join
the Air Force so he could work from within the system rather than head
off to Canada and waste all that schooling. I was his first big case and
he worked hard on it.
My court martial took place on October 8, 1970. I was charged with
willful disobedience to a direct lawful order and faced a maximum five
years in the brig and a dishonorable discharge. I was found not guilty
of the original charge, but guilty of the lesser charge of negligent
disobedience and sentenced to six months with no punitive discharge. The
reason I was found not guilty of the original charge was that I never
said a direct "no" to my commanding officer when I was called before him
and given the formal order. I just kept repeating "I don't feel I'm
mentally or physically capable of killing another human being." It was
my initiation into the power of language. That one sentence saved four
and a half years of my life. They sent me off to a special Air Force
prison in Colorado for nonviolent offenders who were given a chance to
rehabilitate, retrain into a different career field, and return to the
service with a chance to serve out their obligation and get a good
discharge. I didn't buy into the brainwashing, adamantly refused to
follow the program, and eventually got kicked out with an "undesirable" discharge.
That experience was the springboard for a nomadic life that led me
through many countries, many jobs and changes, and finally to Japan,
where I've lived and worked since 1983. I can truthfully say that I
haven't regretted for a moment my decision to resist. My life has been
full and rewarding. Although I could not have fathomed the thought at
the age of eighteen, I now know that I'm a small but important part of a
long history. As long as there have been wars, there have also been
voices raised in opposition to wars. It's a tradition of which I'm proud
to be a part.
So what can we tell this new generation of COs? How can we encourage
them to keep the faith and not to lose hope? How can we let them know
that their actions are worthy and meaningful? One thing is to remind
them that history is on their side and that the more they resist, the
more others will follow and throw huge monkey wrenches in the government
and military's ability to wage illegal and unjust wars. The more
military resistance grows, the weaker the Army becomes in trying to
suppress it.
The following statistics taken from Heather T. Frazer and John
O'Sullivan's We Have Just Begun to Not Fight (Twayne Publishers, 1996)
serve as a good example. During World War II there were fifteen
conscientious objectors for every 10,000 inductees into the military, or
0.15 percent. As the Vietnam War heated up and opposition to it
escalated, the number of COs increased rapidly. In 1968, the percentage
of COs per number of inductees rose to 8.5 percent. In 1969, it reached
13.5 percent; in 1970, 25.6 percent; in 1971, 42.6 percent. In 1972,
with the scaling down of American forces in Vietnam and the winding down
of the draft, for the first time in history more men were classified as
COs than were inducted: 33,041 to 25,273.
Included in James Lewis's Protest and Survive: Underground GI
Newspapers During the Vietnam War (Prager, 2003) are tables showing
year by year "Reported Incidents of GI Dissent," "Military Antiwar
Activists Arrested," and "Average Sentence per GI Activist." The latter
table shows that in 1966 the average sentence per GI activist was over
forty months at hard labor. By 1969 it had fallen to less than five
months at hard labor. This corresponded with a large number of
"fragging" cases and a huge jump in reported incidents of dissent. It
can be said that the GI movement played a big role in helping bring the
Vietnam War to an end.
With the very real possibility of the draft returning soon, thousands
more young men and women will be faced with the issue of following their
consciences. If they resist the war in large numbers, they have the
ability to bring the senseless killing to a standstill and make their
thousands of predecessors like Henry David Thoreau, Eugene Debs, Mahatma
Gandhi, William Stafford, Martin Luther King, Mohammed Ali, Nelson
Mandela, that lone Chinese student at Tiananmen Square, and, yes, Pete
Seeger proud.
Wasn't it Allen Ginsberg who asked, What if they gave a war and nobody
came?
|