Truth Commission on Conscience in War
By Bill Galvin
On March 21 and 22, approximately 500 people gathered in the sanctuary of the historic Riverside Church for the public hearing portion of the Truth Commission on Conscience & War. Celeste Zappala, one of the founders of Gold Star Families Speak Out, spoke of her son’s death in Iraq and the impact it had on her family and community. Tyler Boudreau, a former Marine Captain and Iraq war veteran, observed that many combatants have to believe, “the action they were part of must have been justified, or else there’s something wrong with what I did, and that’s too hard to bear.” And the ever engaging Josh Casteel, Army CO and former Abu Ghraib interrogator, observed, “There is no such thing as a private conscience. Conscience is inherently public and political.” Some of the testimony was in the form of excerpts from the movie Soldiers of Conscience.
The powerful and passionate testimony of these people who were personally affected by war was followed by Herman Keizer, a retired Army chaplain who recounted the struggles of some of “his” soldiers during Vietnam, who were raised with a “just war” ethic and came to believe what they were doing in Vietnam was wrong. Even though they conscientiously objected to what they were doing, and they were sincere, they didn’t have any legal recourse under U.S. conscientious objector law because they could not honestly say that they objected to “war in any form.” He thus laid out his vision for a change in governmental policy to allow for selective conscientious objection.
Keizer’s testimony was followed by testimony from Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions describing how each of their traditions view war. After having these three major faith-based perspectives represented, J.E. McNeil, of the Center on Conscience & War, then spoke pointing out that, “We are all conscientious objectors.”
To round out the evening, testimony continued from Camillo Bica (a philosophy professor and Vietnam veteran) and Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent for the New York Times and author of “War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.”
The next day the commissioners returned to Riverside Church to wrestle with the information that had challenged listeners the day before. The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship was well represented by Rick Ufford-Chase, Peggy Howland, Tom Driver, and Bill Galvin. PCUSA was also well represented by Mark Koenig of the Peacemaking Program, and Chris Iosso of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy.
The gathering included representatives from a number of other religious bodies who are well placed for influencing their tradition. Also included were many academics, with a heavy emphasis on those teaching in seminaries or divinity schools. groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out were well represented, as were a number of other religious peace fellowships.
This second day was spent primarily in smaller groups allowing for personal interaction. There appears to be some momentum in the churches for getting more actively engaged advocating for conscientious objectors. In particular, there was momentum for legislation that would expand the definition of conscientious objection under US law to include objection to a particular war (selective conscientious objection). A Truth Commission report is scheduled to be released on Veteran’s Day November 11th, 2010.
