The Draft: Soldiers Without Arms

When a nine-man infantry squad set out one night this month to lay an ambush for the Viet Cong near the Bao Trai airstrip in the northern coastal region of South Viet Nam, Paul Widtfeldt Jr., an unarmed medical specialist, went along. Next morning, nine of the ten men were found shot through the head. Among them was redhaired, bespectacled Medic Widtfeldt, who had been killed while tending a dying buddy. For his courage, the Army revealed last week, Widtfeldt, 21, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, will be posthumously awarded a second Bronze Star; his first was presented in August, after he ran through withering Communist fire to save a wounded soldier. Such heroism in Viet Nam is not rare, but in Widt-feldt’s case it had a special quality: he was one of nearly 8,500 draft-age conscientious objectors serving their country in and out of uniform.

The U.S. has granted special consideration to conscripts’ religious scruples ever since the Civil War, when pacifists in both North and South were permitted to purchase military exemption or choose hospital work. Nonetheless, the number has always been infinitesimal: of some 10 million men inducted during World War II, only 37,000 were conscientious objectors; of 32,942,344 men registered by selective service since 1948, 20,000 say they are C.O.s; and despite the protest over the Viet Nam war, the percentage has remained constant.

Peace Churches. One reason is that to qualify as a C.O., an inductee must convince his draft board not only that he is “conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form,” but also that he believes in a “Supreme Being.” Many belong to the “peace churches,” which sprang up after the Reformation and which, though their explanations are often more complex, in effect brook no compromise with the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” One faith, Jehovah’s Witnesses, deems it a sin to have anything to do with conscription on grounds that each of its members is a minister and would be barred by national service from preaching; approximately 5,000 Witnesses went to prison rather than be inducted. Most peace churches, however, permit noncombat service, though some C.O.s refuse to wear uniforms.

The latter are classified 1-0 and permitted under the law “to perform civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety or interest”—usually in hospitals or non-profit social agencies. About 5,000 C.O.s are engaged in such chores in the U.S. and nine foreign countries. Says a selective service official: “You have to be sincere to do the jobs they do. Pushing a bedpan around a mental hospital soon begins to wear pretty thin if you aren’t.”

Lone Protection. Those who object only to bearing arms are classified 1-A-O and trained as Army medics; some 3,500 are now serving, scores of them in Viet Nam, where, almost to a man, they have won praise for their bravery under fire. Says one general: “There is the question of their courage. They have to prove themselves.” They are quite capable of it. Said Medic Widtfeldt a few months before his death: “I feel the same as everyone else in combat—scared. My only protection is my faith in God.”