by Rich Meyer
The Truth Commission on Conscience in War (TCCW:www.conscienceinwar.org) convened March 21 at Riverside Church in New York City to hear the testimony of several soldiers and one bereaved mother, regarding the difficult and often lonely struggle to get the US military to release soldiers who have developed conscientious objections to continued participation in war. For most of these soldiers, “conscientious objector” was not in their vocabulary at the point when they saw that something was morally wrong in their actions and the conduct of the war. At the moment they realized this, they became selective conscientious objectors — but US military law recognizes only rejection of all war as conscientious objection. Oddly, this government position awards the privilege of exemption only to pacifists (a small minority among Christians), and leaves anyone in the Just War tradition (which includes most US Christians) with no way to express their discernment that a particular war or a particular act in war is unjust.
The following day the commissioners wrestled with the necessity to provide protection for soldiers from the moral injury of compulsion to continue in the military against the demand of conscience. J.E. McNeil (Executive Director, Center on Conscience & War) reminded us that selective conscientious objection is in fact conscientious objection — the label “CO” is properly shared by all who have at any point been able to recognize some war or some act of war as morally wrong and knew that they could not condone or participate in that act. She suggested that nearly everyone would be a conscientious objector to some war or when faced with some weapons or tactics — and each person should receive the same protection from compulsion to participate in acts that violate their conscience.
It will probably be by listening to the stories of conscientious objectors in the military that we will most quickly understand how support for them can be an important part of our peace witness. We can give thanks for this movement of soldiers hearing their conscience speak to them, and we can join Christians in the Just War tradition in working for the protection of rights of conscience of all conscientious objectors.
Participants included David Miller, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Garland Robertson, pastor of Austin Mennonite Church, Rich Meyer, Mennonite Church USA representative to the Decade to Overcome Violence Committee, Titus Peachey, Mennonite Central Committee, and Curtis Book, MCC East Coast.
