http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...ar06,0,3505973.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Some military reservists will risk jail to resist Iraq duty
By Prashant Gopal
Staff writer
Posted March 6 2003
National Guard reservist Bryan Alarcon said "no" when his sergeant called looking for volunteers to go to Turkey as part of the U.S. military ramp-up to war. If he's ordered to go, Alarcon says, he'll refuse -- even if his decision lands him in jail.
The 25-year-old West Palm Beach resident is among a small group of military personnel who have joined another fight -- the one building locally and across the country against war.
Alarcon said he'd rather risk going to jail than participate in a conflict he considers immoral. He said he didn't apply for money from the military to pay for his Palm Beach Community College tuition this semester and joined thousands of other Americans for the Jan. 18 peace rally in Washington, D.C.
It's uncertain how many service people share Alarcon's beliefs. But as war talk heated up in January, the anti-war G.I. Rights Hotline fielded a record number of calls, mostly from military personnel and families seeking advice on conscientious objector and other discharges.
The 3,582 calls were twice the normal monthly call volume, the group reported.
"They're going to call me a coward," said Alarcon, a full-time student who has a 9-month-old daughter. "But being a coward is not acting as I believe."
Changing beliefs
Soldiers who don't want to participate in the looming war are facing a difficult choice. But jail isn't the only option for resisters. The military recognizes conscientious objectors who prove they have deeply held moral, ethical or religious beliefs that would keep them from participating in war for any reason.
It might sound hypocritical for someone who volunteers for military service to claim pacifism. But the United States government acknowledges that beliefs can change.
Some callers to the G.I. Rights Hotline said they were 18 when they joined and were still forming their opinions. Others said they were persuaded to join by military advertisements, brochures and recruiters talking a lot about job skills, world travel and education benefits, and nothing about the brutality of combat, said Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator for the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., who helped answer calls.
A U.S. Armed Forces Web site, for example, asks: "Where else can you get paid to train with the best, travel around the world, make lifelong friends, and get an education?"
"Many of these people thought they were going to computer school," Galvin said. "Reservists think it's a job they do two weeks a year and a weekend a month. These people are realizing it's not about what they thought it was at all."
But government officials are skeptical of those who say they weren't aware of what they were getting into.
Soldiers, for example, take an oath of enlistment, promising to support and defend the U.S. Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to obey orders from the president of the United States and their superior officers.
Army Lt. Col. Ryan Yantis put it this way: "It's disingenuous for a soldier to wake up and say they never knew they were joining the Army to fight wars. ... It's much like a fireman suddenly realizing, `You mean I have to fight a fire?'"
Defense yes, attack no
When Plantation resident Travis Clark joined the Marine Corps in 1996, it seemed like a good option. Then 19, he couldn't afford college and the country was in a state of relative peace, Clark said. He signed an eight-year contract, which required him to serve five years of active duty and stand by for a possible call-up during the next three years.
As the years passed, his views began to change. He started reading works by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. His active duty stint ended in August 2001, and he now volunteers as special events coordinator for the anti-war group Peace South Florida.
If he's called up before his military contract ends in the summer of 2004, Clark said, he won't go.
"I can see violence used if there was an invading army invading my people," Clark said. "But I'm not going to go into someone else's country and force them to defend themselves."
Like Clark, many resisters say they vowed to defend the country, not to take part in what they consider a war of aggression. Veterans for Peace, a national group with 3,000 members, wrote a letter to the military's top commanders on Feb. 13, urging them not to fight.
"We believe the war against Iraq that the U.S. government is planning and preparing for is in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and customary international law," the letter reads. "The judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg noted, `Resort to war of aggression is not merely illegal, but criminal.'"
Contract vs. `feelings'
The tradition of conscientious objectors dates at least to the Civil War. But draft resistance became a mass movement during the Vietnam War, when 200,000 men were accused of violating draft laws and another 360,000 war resisters weren't formally accused, according to American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker pacifist organization.
During the 1991 Gulf War, about 500 enlisted men and women filed for conscientious objector status and about 61 percent were approved, according to a General Accounting Office report. Several members of the all-volunteer military simply refused to fight and were jailed for up to 18 months.
It's not clear how many soldiers are resisting a war this time. Military officials say the numbers so far have been small. Only six members of the Army, for example, applied for conscientious objector discharges in February, an Army spokesman said.
As for Alarcon, he has kept his pacifist feelings from the rest of his unit. But, as the United States moves closer to an invasion of Iraq, he says he's ready to speak up and is getting his papers in order to file as a conscientious objector.
"I've got to let it be known that I'm not ready to just lay down and do what I'm told, because they say this is a free country," Alarcon said. "I know I signed a contract, but my feelings are lot stronger against this."
Some military reservists will risk jail to resist Iraq duty
By Prashant Gopal
Staff writer
Posted March 6 2003
National Guard reservist Bryan Alarcon said "no" when his sergeant called looking for volunteers to go to Turkey as part of the U.S. military ramp-up to war. If he's ordered to go, Alarcon says, he'll refuse -- even if his decision lands him in jail.
The 25-year-old West Palm Beach resident is among a small group of military personnel who have joined another fight -- the one building locally and across the country against war.
Alarcon said he'd rather risk going to jail than participate in a conflict he considers immoral. He said he didn't apply for money from the military to pay for his Palm Beach Community College tuition this semester and joined thousands of other Americans for the Jan. 18 peace rally in Washington, D.C.
It's uncertain how many service people share Alarcon's beliefs. But as war talk heated up in January, the anti-war G.I. Rights Hotline fielded a record number of calls, mostly from military personnel and families seeking advice on conscientious objector and other discharges.
The 3,582 calls were twice the normal monthly call volume, the group reported.
"They're going to call me a coward," said Alarcon, a full-time student who has a 9-month-old daughter. "But being a coward is not acting as I believe."
Changing beliefs
Soldiers who don't want to participate in the looming war are facing a difficult choice. But jail isn't the only option for resisters. The military recognizes conscientious objectors who prove they have deeply held moral, ethical or religious beliefs that would keep them from participating in war for any reason.
It might sound hypocritical for someone who volunteers for military service to claim pacifism. But the United States government acknowledges that beliefs can change.
Some callers to the G.I. Rights Hotline said they were 18 when they joined and were still forming their opinions. Others said they were persuaded to join by military advertisements, brochures and recruiters talking a lot about job skills, world travel and education benefits, and nothing about the brutality of combat, said Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator for the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., who helped answer calls.
A U.S. Armed Forces Web site, for example, asks: "Where else can you get paid to train with the best, travel around the world, make lifelong friends, and get an education?"
"Many of these people thought they were going to computer school," Galvin said. "Reservists think it's a job they do two weeks a year and a weekend a month. These people are realizing it's not about what they thought it was at all."
But government officials are skeptical of those who say they weren't aware of what they were getting into.
Soldiers, for example, take an oath of enlistment, promising to support and defend the U.S. Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to obey orders from the president of the United States and their superior officers.
Army Lt. Col. Ryan Yantis put it this way: "It's disingenuous for a soldier to wake up and say they never knew they were joining the Army to fight wars. ... It's much like a fireman suddenly realizing, `You mean I have to fight a fire?'"
Defense yes, attack no
When Plantation resident Travis Clark joined the Marine Corps in 1996, it seemed like a good option. Then 19, he couldn't afford college and the country was in a state of relative peace, Clark said. He signed an eight-year contract, which required him to serve five years of active duty and stand by for a possible call-up during the next three years.
As the years passed, his views began to change. He started reading works by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. His active duty stint ended in August 2001, and he now volunteers as special events coordinator for the anti-war group Peace South Florida.
If he's called up before his military contract ends in the summer of 2004, Clark said, he won't go.
"I can see violence used if there was an invading army invading my people," Clark said. "But I'm not going to go into someone else's country and force them to defend themselves."
Like Clark, many resisters say they vowed to defend the country, not to take part in what they consider a war of aggression. Veterans for Peace, a national group with 3,000 members, wrote a letter to the military's top commanders on Feb. 13, urging them not to fight.
"We believe the war against Iraq that the U.S. government is planning and preparing for is in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and customary international law," the letter reads. "The judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg noted, `Resort to war of aggression is not merely illegal, but criminal.'"
Contract vs. `feelings'
The tradition of conscientious objectors dates at least to the Civil War. But draft resistance became a mass movement during the Vietnam War, when 200,000 men were accused of violating draft laws and another 360,000 war resisters weren't formally accused, according to American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker pacifist organization.
During the 1991 Gulf War, about 500 enlisted men and women filed for conscientious objector status and about 61 percent were approved, according to a General Accounting Office report. Several members of the all-volunteer military simply refused to fight and were jailed for up to 18 months.
It's not clear how many soldiers are resisting a war this time. Military officials say the numbers so far have been small. Only six members of the Army, for example, applied for conscientious objector discharges in February, an Army spokesman said.
As for Alarcon, he has kept his pacifist feelings from the rest of his unit. But, as the United States moves closer to an invasion of Iraq, he says he's ready to speak up and is getting his papers in order to file as a conscientious objector.
"I've got to let it be known that I'm not ready to just lay down and do what I'm told, because they say this is a free country," Alarcon said. "I know I signed a contract, but my feelings are lot stronger against this."
