Hundreds of U.S. Soldiers seek Conscientious Objector Status

NEW YORK - Although only a handful of them have gone public, at least several hundred U.S. soldiers have applied for conscientious objector (CO) status since January, says a rights group.

The Center on Conscience and War (CCW), which advises military personnel on CO discharges, reports that since the start of 2003-when many soldiers realized they might have to fight in the Iraq war-there has been a massive increase in the number of enlisted soldiers who have applied for CO status.

"The bare minimum is several hundred, and this number only includes the ones that have come to my group and to groups we're associated with," CCW official J.E. McNeil told IPS... Only a small percentage of people who apply receive a CO discharge. But military statistics lag about one year behind, and the decisions on CO applications take on average six months to one year-sometimes as long as two years-so the exact number of COs in the present war will not be known for some time.

Also, military figures do not count applications from servicemen who are absent without leave, so they will not include Stephen Funk, a marine reserve who was on unauthorized leave before he publicly declared himself a conscientious objector and reported back to his military base in San Jose, California, April 1...[See Funk ]

"People in other countries are proud that an American can stand up to the hegemony and the violence of the war in Iraq."

Soldiers in other countries, including Turkey, have refused to fight in the current war sparked by last month's U.S.-led attack. Three British servicemen were sent home from the Persian Gulf after objecting to the conduct of the invasion and a member of the British Parliament, George Galloway, says he "is calling on British forces to refuse to obey the illegal orders" involved in the war.

As it is in the British army, CO discharge is a long-established practice in the U.S. armed forces and always peaks in wartime. CCW says there were an estimated 200,000 COs in the Vietnam War, 4,300 in the Korean War, 37,000 in World War II and 3,500 in World War I.

The military granted 111 COs from the army in the first Gulf War before putting a stop to the practice, resulting in 2,500 soldiers being sent to prison, says Bill Gavlin from the Center on Conscience and War, quoting a report from the Boston Globe newspaper. During that war, a number of U.S. COs in Camp LeJeune in North Carolina state they were "beaten, harassed and treated horribly," Gavlin says. In some cases, COs were put on planes bound for Kuwait, told that they could not apply for CO status or that they could only apply after they'd already gone to war...

Exerpted from article by Gabriel Packard, Published on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 by Inter Press Service.