Disobedience is a negative example... CO is not about disobedience, it is about obedience to the good, true and beautiful... a positive example is to be fasting (I presume you are Christian from your essay)...
Also, you tried to get out by application (you don't like to create work for others) when a convicted CO is all about witnessing, "all war is wrong for this reason... and I am pursuing CO status because what WE are doing is wrong..."
"Would you kill someone threatening your mother's life?"
"Who knows when instincts would take over, and what I would do, but why would I have to kill someone who is a threat to my mother? Why not just arrest him?"
My status was (is?) 1O, which means they send women and children into battle before me, so my status is rather hard core. You haven't convinced me you are CO and I don't think you'll convince the Air Force. But I think everyone is ultimately CO, it just takes a conversion experience.
These things take time, so you may very well have finished your obligations to the military before you actually arrive at an integrated CO position. If you are an American, whether in the military or not, you are still making the war effort do-able. Being in uniform is no more complicit in guilt for war than I am, having never been in uniform.
Get under a spiritual director's care, and pray and fast to overcome the demons who have you lukewarm (be ye hot or cold, for if you are lukewarm I'll vomit you out of my mouth..." Rev. 3:14-16
Being in the air force with that spiritual journey a priority would rather forbid active participation in killing. No doubt you'd end up filing papers for the rest of your commission, but there it is.
I'd read more of Gandhi, Thoreau, Emerson, etc...
And at the bottom of this page are half dozen books that would be good, libraries carry them, you might find the book on Moslem pacifists quite inspiring in your struggles...
Pacifism is not an idea, it is a life.
No comments:
Post a Comment