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Notes From the Boonies

By Paul Wisovaty

Joe Miller and I recently attended a viewing of the documentary Soldiers of Conscience. It focuses on four active duty Iraq veterans who refused to continue to fight in that war. Three had applied for conscientious objector status; the fourth opted out based upon his objection specifically to the Iraq War. Whether or not one agrees with their positions, it is impossible to hear their stories without admiring their courage. The film's producer, Luna Films, states that it was made "with official permission from the US Army," and I am certain that that is true. The film features interviews with several Army personnel allowing them to express their views, almost all of which are in disagreement with the beliefs of the CO vets. The anti-war vets get much more air time but the pro-war vets are allowed to make their cases, and in the case of one officer, articulately so.

Opening interviews with the anti-war vets were hauntingly reminiscent of the beginning of Vietnam Soldiers' Stories, a Champaign-Urbana-based PBS documentary made about ten years ago which featured me and Barry Romo. All thirteen of us in that film started out saying pretty much the same things: we grew up with John Wayne and Randolph Scott war movies, our dads and uncles fought in WW II, and by God we'd rather kill a Commie than make love to Tuesday Weld. (Iraq vets will have no idea what I just said.) Then one day we - just like the vets in this film - found ourselves plucked out of Boonies Township High School and slam-dunked into an armored personnel carrier in a war zone, and everything that our formerly iconic adult role models had told us made a hell of a lot less sense.

To the Army's credit, two of three CO requests were granted. Other than being recipients of a lot of very unpleasant peer pressure from their fellow soldiers while the applications were pending, they were not officially sanctioned. The third CO applicant was court-martialed and imprisoned, but only after he had refused to be redeployed. The Army called it "intentionally missing movement." It should have been mitigating that he was a ten-year active duty vet. As this is tantamount to having been drafted five times, one would think that that would have counted for something. The fourth soldier, having served honorably for one tour, also refused to return and went into hiding. During this time he appeared on 60 Minutes and was interviewed by Dan Rather. He eventually turned himself in, was court-martialed then released early for good behavior after serving 9 of 12 months incarceration. He stated that, even as he walked into prison, he had never felt freer in his entire life.

I suppose that this may be said about any movie or book review, but it is impossible for me (or Roger Ebert or the New York Times) to give you any real appreciation of this film absent your seeing it yourself. The testimonies of the vets are articulate and compelling. Speaking personally, I would love for my daughter to have married any one of these guys (no disrespect to my son-in-law, who will probably wind up reading this). I would love to include a couple of dozen very moving quotes from them, but Jeff Machota tells me that he would like to have room in this issue for at least a couple of other articles. Being thus handicapped, I can only refer you back to the first sentence of this paragraph.

Both vets who applied for CO status while in Iraq were granted that request. Arguments put forth by Army representatives were not without substance. This was not an instance reminiscent of an old All In The Family episode, in which Archie Bunker is chosen by a liberal radio station to be interviewed as a representative of the National Rifle Association. Excepting the First Sergeant who described firing 50-caliber machine guns as "a real hoot" (actually, it kind of was) and an officer who was trying only minimally to conceal her outright contempt for conscientious objectors, the Army reps presented their positions admirably. One of them offered the quote that "people sleep comfortably in their beds at night because of men willing to do violence on their behalf." Having been in law enforcement for thirty years, I was familiar with that quote, and I understand it.

Perhaps the most compelling quote came from an Army Major with a Master's degree in philosophy. Referring to the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan, he posed the following question: What would the Good Samaritan have done had he happened upon the scene an hour earlier, while the physical assault of the traveler was taking place? Would he have intervened to try to stop the assault? If necessary, would he have gone so far as to have taken the life of someone inflicting potentially lethal harm upon an innocent person? As may be inferred, the Major views combat, in "justifiable" wars, as calling upon soldiers to do just that.

As may be apparent, I am getting in way over my head here. I had to use spell check just to figure out how to spell "philosophy." Soldiers of Conscience is an excellent documentary, and easily deserves the multiple awards which it has won. And I do have a plan for it.

My plan is to approach the Tuscola High School principal, with whom I have a pretty good working relationship, and ask him about the possibility of introducing this film to his seniors next fall. As they will then be less than a year away from entering the adult world, this is definitely a film which they should see. I cannot imagine that their viewing this documentary would not engender serious discussion - and disagreement - concerning the subject of their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and more importantly as human beings. As one of the Iraq CO vets observed, this country, through an act of the Continental Congress, passed a law creating conscientious objector status in 1775. What this meant - and continues to mean - is that "spiritual law trumps legal law."

As it should.

Paul Wisovaty is a member of VVAW. He lives in Tuscola, Illinois, where he works as a probation officer.
He was in Vietnam with the US Army 9th Division in 1968.