Twice in my life I have had to make a serious decision about military service. Neither was in case of national emergency, or a draft of young men into military service. Both times were matters of conscience. The first was in 1983, when I seriously considered becoming a British Army Chaplain. I attended a week-long recruitment session at the Royal Army Chaplain's Department at Bagshot Park in Surrey. Military service was then a very tempting proposition. I decided not to, on a point of conscience.The second time I faced a similar conscientious choice was with regard to the oath for United States citizenship. It is a mere happenstance, an accident, where you are born. You do not choose it, nor think about what it means to be a citizen of your place of birth. When you live in a country not of your birth, and want to take participation in that country seriously, then usually you have to make some kind of statement about it. In the United States, the citizenship oath says that you will participate in the military if called upon to do so. This too became a point of conscience, and for the same reasons that in 1983 I chose not to become a military chaplain, in 2012 I chose not to agree to serve in the military if called upon to do so. At my age, it is most unlikely that I would ever be called into military service. Still, it's a matter of principle.
The issue of conscience is quite simple. Jesus of Nazareth, and the first Christians (for at least a couple of hundred years) were pacifists. They eschewed participation in violence. I have tried to follow that Way.
It is a simple matter, yet entered into after much deliberation, for the truth is I have a great deal of sympathy for soldiers. I don't have sympathy for governments who declare war because "We have no other choice." There are always others choices. It is not government officials who die, but young men, and now young women. Nor do I have sympathy for generals, who by and large orchestrate the killing. My sympathy is with the young boys (and now girls) who "join up" and don't in truth know what they are doing. Jingoism, peer pressure, money, the promise of travel and adventure, "glory," these are the reasons. They mask the awful reality of "kill or be killed" for a cause that is not understood, or for a lie, or for something ignoble, such as land, or gold, or oil, or power.
I read recently Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars. (I wrote a review coming out soon in The Journal for Peace and Justice Studies). The book is about the First World War. The book looks mostly at those who resisted the war for conscientious reasons. It reads like a good novel, but is great history. It is profoundly moving. I was struck again by the insanity of total war and the great toll it takes on the young — especially the young.
In the aftermath of the War to End Wars, all over Britain monuments were raised to the dead. Every village, every town has its war memorial with lists of the young men who were killed. Usually, as part of the memorial is a verse from the Bible: "No man hath greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." In the First World War, this was profoundly true as many of the young men who died were best friends, neighbors, and class mates who all joined the same regiment, in the same battalion, on the same day. In France they shared intimately every aspect of life: eating together, sleeping next to, enduring all the same discomforts. The bonds of friendship were strengthened in ways almost inconceivable in peacetime. Often they died within minutes, seconds even, of "going over the top" of the trenches.
By all accounts, from the letters of soldiers who died, and stories of those who survived, soldiers fight and die not for some grand purpose, but for the soldier next to them in the line. They fight and die for each other. So, there is a profound sense in which the saying is true, "No man hath greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
There are philosophical and moral issues to face with regard to love and killing for love's sake. For myself, I determined that it is not acceptable to kill another for love's sake. for love is due to all. But to die for love of the Other is something different. Many young people have faced that with courage and fortitude. I have great sympathy for young soldiers who face that in a way that I have never faced it. In the Iraq war nearly 5,000 United States soldiers were killed. Over 32,000 have been seriously injured. In previous wars, many of those would have died. Today, they live with the terrible legacy of their injuries. This does not account for the countless numbers who suffer today from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Today I spare a thought for those young men and women, and for those who still face the choice to lay down their lives for their friends.
+Ab. Andy