If sex is a war, I am a conscientious objector: I will not play.
My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.
For me, the passing of time has provided me with subjects I never had before. Subjects I can now look at from a historical perspective. Like the anti-communist era in America. I lived through that. I was a boy; I didn't find a way to write about it until many years later. The same with the Vietnam War.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.
I left the Democratic Party basically on issues of national security during the end of the Vietnam War.
I had hoped to go to law school, but the war started, and because of the strong feeling that I did not want to kill anybody, I joined the Merchant Marine when I graduated from Berkeley.
When they tried to draft me, I earned a college degree.
I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.
Obama avoided the Vietnam draft with a letter from his family doctor diagnosing him as medically eight.
I succeeded in staying out of the military during the Vietnam War, and I would never assume the right to tell others to do a “duty” that I shirked.
So I don't worry about, and people shouldn't worry about a draft I think we're in good shape, I really do. And, if not, we'll - I'll address the nation. But I don't see any need to right now.
I never had the chance to decide; I was drafted to serve my nation. While I received a deferment to attend school, I ultimately served in the United States Army in the years following the Korean conflict.
I'm a child of the sixties, I'm a man of the sixties. During that period of time this country was coming apart at the seams. We were in Southeast Asia. Good men were dying for America and for the Constitution.
I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement.
At that time a lot of young men didn't want to go to the war and kill. This guy that I fell in love with was one of those so he escaped to Canada and I followed him.
You don't need to be a fan of wars or militarism to note that heroic action - whether being prepared to be jailed as a conscientious objector or putting your life on the line by joining the resistance - creates a sense of meaning when society faces a huge challenge.
I worked with Dalton Trumbo, who served time for refusing to give up names of people that were accused of being Communists. I've always admired him.
I wouldn't choose conscientious objector and I wouldn't go to Canada. I did what Hap did and almost went to prison. I think the threw me a bone as the war was winding down, and I think they accepted my sincerity for being against that war.
Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that every soldier has the right to 'a moral choice.' His suffering mocks the notion of the land of the free.
No one wanted me to be a conscientious objector. My parents certainly didn't want it. My teacher and mentor, Joe Brearley, didn't want it. My friends didn't want it. I was alone.
I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.
I'm a writer. I don't support any war. That's my principle.
Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, I sought to avoid it through an assignment to the Public Health Service.
They asked if I knew what 'conscientious objector' meant. I told them that when the white man asked me to go off somewhere and fight and maybe die to preserve the way the white man treated the black man in America, then my conscience made me object.
