A Conscientious Objector

In all the hype about Muhammad Ali’s death, I wanted to contrast something.  A lot of people made a big deal about Ali being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.  A lot of people used the CO status to avoid going to war, like Senator Bernie Sanders.  Vietnam was an unpopular war-and we also had a draft.  That meant that people would use all kinds of means to avoid the draft.  People like President George Bush were able to “honorably serve” in the Texas National Guard knowing full well they wouldn’t be called for duty across the sea.  President Bush was not alone. President Clinton pulled all kinds of strings to avoid service.

Did Ali really believe what he was saying? Or was he doing it to avoid service? People close to Ali say he did, and we don’t have any reason not to believe him. Looking back from 2016 to the mid sixties is hard today since we have so much more information. Elvis Presley interrupted his career to serve in the Army. Ali probably could have done the same thing and not actually seen combat. Hollywood actors and directors served during WW2, and many didn’t see combat since they were more valuable propping up troop morale. To be clear, Vietnam wasn’t WW2.

Plenty of star athletes have gone to war in our history. There is a whole history of when baseball went to war. Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Jerry Coleman, Bob Feller, Lou Brissie, and Johnny Pesky left thriving baseball careers and saw action in Europe and the Pacific.

When I was at the National World War Two Museum going through the Road To Tokyo, I snapped this picture.

Pretty incredible story. Conscientious Obj

A photo posted by Jeff Carter (@pointsnfigures) on Jun 9, 2016 at 1:46pm PDT

Here is what a less famous person did when forced to choose. It was his moment. You should know this story. Desmond Doss was a conscientious objector who chose to remain a conscientious objector, yet still serve his country in a time of war. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions and is the only CO to do so in the history of the United States.  Here is a short video of his story, and yes it’s him.

I am not passing judgement, but I think the contrast over the decisions that Doss made compared to the decisions other’s made are very provocative and interesting.