Ken Burns' WWII Doc said many conscientious objectors were trained as medics on the front lines...

So how did things change so drastically when '5 Deferments Dick Cheney' came along?

It was clear from the Burns' Documentary that being a conscientious objector meant you refused to take the life of another, but that did not protect you from 'harm's way' since you could be deployed as a trained medic to the front lines, or in charge of maintaining supplies, food, etc. all necessary to the war effort.

Is that still military's policy today regarding 'conscientious objectors'??

Conscientious objectors are still drafted, and they stick you in a non-combat role. The idea is not that you object to the notion of serving America, but that you object (for strongly-held moral/religious reasons) to killing. Cheney was deferred, as you said; he wasn't an objector.

of course, we haven't drafted anybody else, either.

"Assuming the draft is to be reactivated" in there.

also volunterred to do so.

He was thoroughly in favor of war and somebody else fighting it.

He got deferred because of school, and then because of a convenient baby, IIRC. NOT because he didn't believe in war.

I don't have anything against student deferments, seeing as how many of my friends had them back in the day. But they were not war supporters -- they correctly perceived that the Vietnam War was a huge mistake and nothing but a meat grinder, and they said so quite publicly. They tried to make the war over there stop, they demonstrated, sometimes getting their heads bashed by unfriendly cops, sometimes losing the parental support that made it possible for them to be students in the first place.

Not so Dick Cheney and others of his ilk in the Republican Party. The very definition of a chickenhawk is one who is completely in favor of going to war, as long as someone else does the actual fighting.

IMO being a CO is a thoroughly honorable stance. It is very difficult to obtain that designation -- iirc you have to prove that you have been a lifelong pacifist, preferably in some well-known church like the Quakers, and not a recent convert to the notion. Sometimes you get drafted anyway, and a gun is put in your hands, and that's that. Historically though, many battlefield medics have been COs, doing a very dangerous job.

Hekate

to putting his ass on the line when he could 'sacrifice' his mouth instead.

diffuse bombs and mines. There are many departments that are non combat-code ciphers, interpreters, etc. You can still keep your principles and support your country.

Just checking.

who was a medic on the front lines in World War II.

He was the minister at my Methodist Church in the 1950s. Most men in my little town had served in the military, many in combat. The veterans said that Brother Chris had the most dangerous job there was.

Most men in my town liked to hunt deer and turkey. Brother Chris did not hunt, but again, I never heard anyone criticize him for not hunting.

Brother Chris was truly Christian in my opinion.

Any CO who was assigned to be a medic more than paid their debt to their country.

The CO (conscientious objector) will not fight with you. The CO might save your life, or that of an enemy POW. The CO might record the history of the battle or film it for posterity. The CO might return home a highly decorated hero without ever taking up arms against the foe.

The CH (chickenhawk) will do none of the above. The CH is like a leach, sucking on the blood of warriors and COs. The CH is loud and arrogant .. the extrovert to the CO's introversion. The CH is often wars' loudest cheerleader, safely wrapped in a cocoon of entitlement.

James "Doc" Dempsey epitomized the CO in combat. A combat medic with 5th Battalion/7th Cavalry (Custer's hard-luck 5/7), Doc Dempsey went up Shakey's Hill in Cambodia in May 1970 against the NVA .. unarmed. Demsey treated his men and saved lives. In the end, he treated his own sucking-chest wound. Doc Demsey was medivaced to the USAF 337's ICU in Saigon, and lived long enough to amaze his fellow patients (including CBS correspondent John Laurence) with his glorious outlook on life, wonderful sense of humor, and total disdain for the Nixon/Kissinger killing machine. "Doc" Demsey die in the night from his wound, and his name is now on The Wall.

Chickenhawk Dick Cheney took his instruction from the evil men that Conscientious Objector Doc Dempsey loathed: Nixon and Kissinger. Cheney took five passes on the war he egged-on, Viet Nam, and he has rooted for war ever since. CO James "Doc" Dempsey is 37 years into eternity because of men like Dick Cheney.

Dempsey writes: "During my time in the Navy Hospital in New York, several people trying to find me had difficulty because I was listed on the morning report as KIA. It's not easy to find a dead man in a military hospital, even when he's breathing. My official status also affected my pay for over a year (I didn't get any), since the Army is not in the habit of paying dead men. Although it took a lot of persuasion, in 1971 I was successful in proving that I was alive, and collected all my back pay. I was then able to buy stationary and notify all the kind people who had sent their condolences after my reported death."

http://www.thecatfromhue.com/doc.htm


"Doc" Dempsey, a later-day Yossarian (Catch-22)

"Doc Dempsey was a joker. Everything was funny to him--the war, the Army, the heat, the rain, the Vietnamese, the doctors and nurses at the hospital where he lay, his wounds--it was all riotously funny to him. He couldn't help seeing the irony, the contradictions, the insanity, the nonsense, the stupidity, the utter absurdity and waste of the war without pointing it out to others and laughing about it. He didn't take the war seriously because the war wouldn't take him seriously. It kept trying to kill him..."

John Laurence, The Cat from Hue, p.801