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| Should the Writers Have Made Pyle Go to Vietnam? |
After I saw the title of the article (see below), I thought "Who in the hell is a conscientious objector in today's time?" After all, there is no draft. If you don't want to go to war, then don't join the military (at least if you're in the U.S.).
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/thewrongstuff/
It reminds me of an episode of MASH where an injured lieutenant tried to get out of the service. The lieutenant signed up for the ROTC in his college days. The lieutenant used the ROTC as a scholarship fund without thinking of what his duties would be or could be when he got his commission. Alan Alda was beside himself when he heard of the lieutenant's scheme to get out of his obligations. Alda was especially livid when the lieutenant said "I didn't think there would be a war."
Pierce excoriated the lieutenant by saying 'By god, didn't you think of reading the fine print before you signed up for the ROTC that says 'in case of war you may have to go fight in it'?"
The article wasn't really about conscientious objectors. Slate just used a conscientious objector's plight as a pretext to bash Bush. It was nice to have some corn-fed All-American boy doing the bashing.
I don't know if they call themselves conscientious objectors, but a couple people have refused to deploy because they thought the war was illegal (ie, President Bush declared war without the approval of congress), and one guy recently refused to deploy because he said Obama wasn't legally the president (that whole birther thing)...never mind that Obama didn't 'start' the war. So there are still crazies out there.
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