CO REGISTRY and LINKS

The National Registry for
Conscientious Objection

Sign The Registry

Registry Signature Form

Conscientious Objector Statement
by Chris King

To Whom It May Concern
by Lewis Randa

A Brief History of American Pacifism

CO Profiles

COs Responses to the September 11th Attacks

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It

Vision of Justice in a World of Turmoil
An interfaith Gathering held at the Sherborn Community Center on March 10, 2002. Address by Lewis M. Randa

Documentation File
  Materials and Support Information

© The Peace Abbey

The National Registry for Conscientious Objection

It is fitting that the pacifist be bold in the knowledge that he or she (however unworthy) is with the prophets, and his or her inquisitors (however worthy) are speaking for the dead past out of which humankind is creeping. It is not right that the advocates of love should apologize or flinch.

Handbook for Conscientious Objectors Eighth Edition, 1965

The National Registry for Conscientious Objection

The National Registry for Conscientious Objection was created at The Peace Abbey following the war in the Persian Gulf in early 1991. The National Registry provides men and women of all ages with an opportunity to register their objection to personal, national, and international violence.

As a concept, conscientious objection was co-opted by the military who gave itself the power to grant or withhold official status as a "C.O." The National Registry reclaims the notion of conscientious objection, and returns it to its original meaning as a way of life (rather than a military or governmental designation). Conscientious objection is not the property of generals, to be handed out or withheld according to the judgment of draft boards. Objection to violence and courage of conscience are characteristics of a life committed to peace.

The National Registry is a national campaign to promote peacemaking as a practical ideal: a way of living in the present that represents our best hope for the future. It seeks to inspire peace and justice in society by inviting peacemakers everywhere to "register" their conscientious objection to violence, and in so doing, to share with others their commitment to a peaceful world.

The intent of The National Registry for Conscientious Objection is to emphasize one's absolute dedication to peaceful living and to peaceful resolution of conflict. It is only by striving for perfection that we approach perfection. Likewise, it is only by committing ourselves absolutely to peaceful living that peace will in fact prevail, in our lives and on the planet.

STATE RADIO MUSIC VIDEO ON CAMILO MEJIA WHO FOUND SUPPORT AND SANCTUARY AT THE PEACE ABBEY. HIS OFFICIAL DOCUMENT ON CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IS HELD AT THE ABBEY.

Signing the Registry

We welcome you to The Peace Abbey to sign The National Registry for Conscientious Objection in person, and join us in this initiative for peace. Or you can download the National Registry form and send the signed original back to The Peace Abbey, Two North Main Street, Sherborn, MA. 01770. We encourage you to keep a copy for your personal records, perhaps framed and displayed as a sign of your commitment to peace. If you would like to have a form that several individuals can sign, download the National Registry Page for Groups below.

Conscientious Objector Statement
By Chris King, Attender, Wellesley MA Monthly Meeting

    When it came time to prepare a statement for my draft board I was told by draft counselors that the Board members often asked the question, "If someone invaded your home and threatened your family, would defend them? Would you use a weapon to stop the aggressor?"

    I could see how some people would assume that defending your house against a thief or murderer would be the "same thing" as defending your nation against an enemy.

    I had also played football and other aggressive sports. I could see how some people might think that a team engaged in a rough game might be the "same thing" as an army engaged in combat.

    I respected the role that police have in protecting communities and their need to carry and use weapons. I could see how some people might see a police force as the "same thing" as an army.

    I needed to clarify for myself the real difference between joining an army and defending against attackers, playing rough team sports and working on a police force.

    After some thought I came to these conclusions:
    An army is different from a defender, a sportsman, or a police officer because a soldier is carefully trained with one aim in mind, to kill other people. None of the other activities has as its specific intention the desire to end the life of another human being. A defender or a well-trained police officer -reluctantly- uses a weapon. In addition, the process of learning to be a soldier is a 'dehumanizing process'. A young person changes his or her appearance to lose individuality. The uniform depersonalizes the person. The soldier is rigorously taught to respect and fear commanding officers more than the enemy. Many of his or her civil rights are removed. Above all, other human beings are reduced in training to "targets" so that the soldier can eliminate them impersonally.

    So my conclusion was that I could not serve in the military not only because it would deliberately teach me to become a tool for ending other human lives. It would also reduce me to less than human and blunt or even eliminate the very compassionate perception I have as a thinking, caring individual. It was also discriminatory in that it stated that some people were to be protected and defended and others killed "with extreme prejudice." I could not willingly cooperate with a process, which deliberately sought to train out of me my deep seeded moral and religious belief that killing another human is wrong.

To Whom It May Concern:


"I have to go because if I don't, someone else will have to go in my place."
--- Jeffery Gurvitz, a U.S soldier killed in Vietnam in '68.)

As a conscientious objector or war resister, have you given any thought to who might have gone in your place, and whether his or her name is on the wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and in the book at the Abbey chapel?

There is yet another level of understanding the term "unknown soldier" when one considers that, though they never had to go to Vietnam and kill anyone, a soldier may, indeed, have been killed because he or she went in your place. While most people may not be naturally drawn to concern themselves with such matters, it is our conscientious duty as pacifists to do no less.

The name of this "unknown soldier" may be entered in the Vietnam Book at the Abbey chapel which includes the names of 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. There is no way of knowing who went in your place, and if he or she made it home alive.

Only God knows.

--- Lewis Randa, discharged from the military as a conscientious objector in 1971.)

Brief History of American Pacifism

Conscientious objection has a unique place in United States history. In fact, the tradition of refusing military service - and the recognition of that right - can be traced back to America's founding fathers, some of whom were pacifists fleeing oppression for their beliefs in Europe. Several of the original colonies, including Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, were founded by the Quaker pacifist William Penn. The framers of the U.S. Constitution even considered including an exemption from military service for conscientious objectors in the Second Amendment. This clause was omitted because they did not envision the need for creating a standing army. At the onset of the Revolutionary War, George Washington issued a draft order, which was a call to "all young men of suitable age to be drafted, except those with conscientious scruples against war.”

During the American Civil War, the conscription law of the North provided the opportunity for religious objectors and others to buy their way out of the draft. Those who refused or could not afford that option were treated harshly under military law. Four thousand men served in the military as unarmed legal conscientious objectors (COs).

World War I ushered in the first draft since the Civil War, and policies that were even less tolerant of conscientious objectors. Seventeen draft resisters died of mistreatment in Alcatraz Prison during World War I.

In World War II, a total of nearly 43,000 Americans refused to fight for reasons of conscience: 12,000 served in Civilian Public Service, 6,000 went to prison and 25,000 served in the military as noncombatants.

During the Vietnam War more than 170,000 men were officially recognized as conscientious objectors. Thousands of other young men resisted by burning their draft cards, serving jail sentences or leaving the country. Though the military is currently an all-volunteer organization, when the Gulf War broke out in 1991, 2,500 men and women volunteers serving in the Armed Forces refused to serve in Saudi Arabia on the basis of conscience. While draft opposition has been an individual decision made by a minority in all U.S. wars, public opposition to wars such as the War of 1812, the Mexican War, World War I and the Vietnam War sparked mass movements that reached far beyond men of draft age.

POST-WAR CONTRIBUTIONS
A new movement, termed by its adherents ‘radical pacifism’ would emerge . . . Far from feeling despondent about the overwhelming popular support for the war effort in the United States, radical pacifists found the shared resistance and the sense of emerging movement in their distinct camp and prison communities exhilarating. --James Tracy, historian The story of WWII conscientious objectors did not end when the war was over. Pioneers of nonviolent protest, many of the COs' principles would bear fruit in the activism of the decades that followed. COs would also become key leaders in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam, anti-apartheid and other social justice movements of the late 20th century.

CO Profiles

The son of a well-to-do Bostonian, David Dellinger rejected his comfortable background when he walked out of Yale during the Depression to follow the path of Francis of Assisi. Dellinger lived among the poor, was among the first young men in America to refuse the draft in 1940 and was jailed twice for his refusal. He held hunger strikes in prison that eventually integrated the federal prison system and was bloodied introducing Gandhi's principles of nonviolence to the political street struggles against the Vietnam War. In 1968 he held the world spellbound with his cry "the whole world is watching," referring to the media coverage of the Chicago police riot. During the trial of the Chicago Eight, Dellinger and his co-defendants turned the tables on their accusers and put the government on trial. He is author of many books including his autobiography, From Yale to Jail: The Life of a Dissenter. Dellinger lives in Montpelier, Vermont with his wife Elizabeth Peterson.

Quaker Stephen G. Cary was director of a CPS camp during the war, and commissioner for European Relief for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) after World War II. The Quakers received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for that work. Since those years, he has served the organization in many capacities, including 12 years as chairperson of the AFSC Board of Directors and Corporation. He is now retired as President of Haverford College and lives in Haverford, Pennsylvania.

The son of a New Jersey dentist, African American CO Bill Sutherland has lived in Africa for the past five decades, tirelessly recording and participating in efforts for social change on both continents. A co-founder of Americans for South African Resistance, The American Committee on Africa, and World Peace Brigades, he served as a special assistant to the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Tanzania, and has been fostering Pan-African relations for all of his adult life. His recent book, Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insights into Non Violence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa, documents his work on that continent.

Carlos Cortez has been a construction laborer, factory worker, janitor, journalist, salesman, curator, printmaker and poet. He is actively involved in Chicago's Mexican community. Mr. Cortez first pursued printmaking after he became involved with the International Workers of the World, for whom he drew cartoons and created posters. His political works include homages to United Farm Workers' leader Cesar Chavez.

Asa Watkins was born a Presbyterian and became a Quaker after his CPS experience. He was among the first COs to serve in a mental hospital working as an attendant in the Virginia State Hospital in Williamsburg, where he was a reformer of the state mental health system. Watkins was a lifetime activist and artist who taught special education for decades. Watkins passed away in June 2001. To view more artwork by Asa Watkins, go to the gallery.

George Houser was one of the Union Eight seminarians who were the first public draft resisters in the United States. He was a founder of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) with James Farmer and Bayard Rustin during the war. In 1947 he and Rustin organized the first Freedom Ride for integration of interstate buses, the Journey of Reconciliation. Houser co-founded the first American organization opposed to South African apartheid with Bill Sutherland. Houser has served in many capacities in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, from youth secretary to executive director. He and his wife Jean live in an intentional community in Pomona, NY.

COs Responses to the September 11th terrorist attacks

Even though people may object to what their government is doing, that can be patriotic, too. A person can be a patriot who believes that we’re doing the wrong thing, my country should be doing something else. That should not be criticized, but should be understood as part of the democratic function. --Walter Cronkite, CBS News, October 7, 2001

George Houser: I have not changed my general approach. I have matured and know what the possibilities are and the limitation on non-violence. I know we're not going to create a non-violent world suddenly. The reaction in the U.S. is a good example and the reaction around the world - there is hysteria against hysteria. There is a war-like atmosphere in the U.S. without a war situation. There is bombing without opposition. Who is the U.S. fighting? It is a ghost - eliminate Bin Laden and it won't alter the situation. The anger is still there. Look at Israel and Palestine, going on so long and continuing, responding to violence with violence. It never ends - retaliation vs. retaliation - that's what we are getting into. There is no end to it. The pacifist position is a witness position - not something that will sweep over the world -a loving, reconciling approach but it can get you crucified. Gandhi and MLK were assassinated; Christ was crucified. Ultimately you have to be prepared for that if you stand for an ideal. Rather than non-violence taking over the world, I believe in a non-violence force. I don't believe very simply that it will take over the world. If you take that position you have to be prepared to suffer for it.

Steve Cary: We have every right to track down the culprits, but military action is only going to increase hatred. We can make our great country greater by lessening hatred in the world. I would focus on reassessment of Mid-East policy. I would greatly increase aid to the underdeveloped world where there is so much poverty. We need to cooperate on global issues and make far more generous use of our tremendous wealth for the benefit of the human family. From my personal perspective, if I were draft age today, I probably wouldn't accept alternative service as I did in 1941. I didn't feel I could accept prison in 1941. At age 86, I think I could go to jail with a better spirit. Sam Yoder I live in a community that is predominantly Mennonite and Amish. A few weeks ago there was a letter to the local newspaper that was signed by 2100 people. It expressed horror at the events in New York and urged caution, something other than being vengeful. It is different now than with Pearl Harbor. People were much more inclined to fight then - we were in a real war. It is awful that 6000 people died. I'm fearful that the rhetoric is a little scary. I'm afraid that one of those missiles is going to kill a lot of innocent people. If you ask me what we should do now, I just don't know. We need to be concerned with peace and justice. In World War II, we talked about peace; we didn't use the word justice very much. Nowadays in our church we talk about justice.

David Dellinger: We mourn the victims and express our solidarity with their wives, husbands, children, friends and relatives. We have to put this destructive terrorism into a real perspective, senseless as its horrors are. Killing innocent civilians in other countries would do no justice to those killed in this country, and will not bring them back to life. Launching a war that destabilizes regions or leads to a further escalation of violence would be a grave mistake with unforeseen consequences. It would not increase our safety and might increase the likelihood of more terrorist attacks. Instead we should strengthen the efforts to strengthen non-violence throughout the world.


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