Content:• St. Martin of Tours:The CO Saint– page 3• War and peace...–page 4•Soldier Update:­ page 5• How to Give,How to Get:Contact and donation in­formation for the MCN of­fice – page 6

M aki n g th e S al eBy Daniel HershbergerAs the young man sits down fordinner, his mother looks up cheer­fully, happy to see her son. “Any­thing good happen today?” shewants to know. “I found someoneto pay for me to go to college” heanswers, somewhat sheepishly,his wide eyes saying “It soundstoo good to be true, it can't be true,but this I need to believe.”“ Go on” his mother says, some­what reserved, “Tell me more.”She also appears to believe thatthis is too good to be true.As the proud, coming­of­age man

that he is, the son does his best towin his mother over. He hasalready looked into this, he as­sures, and knows what he is get­ting into. The benefits are simplytoo great to pass up. An educationpaid for, training for any job that hewants... The most important of allbenefits, however, is one that is in­tangible: “And besides,” he says,with ever growing confidence, “Itstime for me to be the man.” Thecommercial fades to an end, and ifthe advertisement has worked, theviewer will now believe that a

young man has made an in­formed, responsible decision, andis now taking control of his life.

As a commercial for the Armyin a time of war, it is no wonderthat the realities of the Army andwarfare are never touched on. Noguns, no blood, no trauma. Novideo of driving around in astiflingly hot Stryker armoredvehicle until an anonymous andsudden explosion rocks thevehicle, changing or ending thelives of its passengers. Nothing ofthat in this advertisement. In fact,it is only in the last 3 seconds ofthe advertisement that the USArmy logo appears, giving theviewer that small yet importantpiece of information that revealsthat much more is at stake herethan an education or a job.

In the age of a volunteer military,it is necessary that the professionof soldier be sold. To be sold, itmust be made to look attractive.And so advertisements and com­mercials are made that tout thefinancial, moral, and personal be­nefits of joining the military. Someplay on a sense of adventure andrisk, while others feature a simpleconversation at the dinner table oron the back porch, where the con­versation revolves around collegemoney and having a future, ap­pealing to the sense of familialpride, responsibility, and comingof age. Important of course is theneed to keep hidden the truecosts of war.

...continued on page 6

since the last issue...

...13 new inquiries.

...1 Honorable Discharge.

...10 speaking engagements.

...new outreach material printed.

...MCN website redesigned.

...1 cubic foot of updated military

regulations.

December 2009 Volume 6, Issue 4M i l i t a r y C o u n s e l i n g N e tw o r k

MCN IS A PROJECT OF THE GERMAN MENNONITE PEACE COMMITTEES ODNU FO FFFNN

MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK PAGE 2

$1,000,000

2009 saw the honorable discharge of Matt Harju (Sound Off July, 2009) and Rich Siems (Sound OffMarch, 2009). Both Matt and Rich were discharged for conscientious objection.

$44,000According to the Pentagon, the hourly cost of keeping the United States' topfighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F­22, in the air. http://www.washingtonpost.com

The cost of keeping one US soldier in Afghanistan for a year, according to ToddHarrison, senior budget fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Asses­ment in Washington. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4406846

PAGE 3MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK

When I was little, the be­ginning of November was anice time for me. Not onlybecause it would almost bemy birthday, but also be­cause in kindergarten wewould spend time makingand decorating lanterns. OnNovember 11th, we wouldcarry these lanterns throughthe darkness in a large pro­cession of children, led by aman on a horse: Martin ofTours, or St. Martin. Afterthe procession, we would godoor to door in the neighbor­hood and sing a song ortwo, which would be rewar­ded with candy. That's right,none of that American “trickor treat”­laziness. We sangfor our candy.

In class, they would teachus about who St. Martinwas: a Roman soldier whogave half his cloak to a beg­gar. (My father always par­ticularly liked the way St.Martin gave half his cloak.)Recently, however, I'vecome to learn a bit moreabout his story.

The son of a Roman cav­alry officer, Martin was in­ducted into the militaryhimself at fifteen. His in­terest in Christianity hadalready been growing for

awhile – something that was notat all common for the upper lay­ers of society in those days. Afterhaving given half his cloak to ascantily clad beggar outside thegates of Amiens, as the story hasit, he experiences a vision atnight. Jesus appears to him,wearing the half cloak that Martinhad given away, saying “Here isMartin, the Roman soldier... hehas clad me.” The next morning,Martin finds the cloak restored.

I've heard citing nightly visionsof Jesus don't do well in a Con­scientious Objector application,but for Martin this was definitelya turning point in his faith. It tookhim two years, however, to seekdischarge, and he refused to de­ploy just before a battle with theGauls, speaking the words “I ama soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.”

His command considered thissuspicious timing (the current,generic, all­too­often used reas­on for a command to deny aConscientious Objector applica­tion) and charged him with cow­ardice. To counter this allegation,Martin offered to go to the front ofthe troops unarmed. (For thoseseeking discharge from today'smilitary, we believe this won't benecessary.) Like so many CO'sthroughout history, this couldhave ended in a martyr's deathfor Martin – but the Gauls offereda peace treaty, the battle was

called off and Martin received hisdischarge.

Martin went on to become apriest, then a bishop, founding afew monasteries before finallywithdrawing from the world andbecoming a hermit. After hisdeath, he became the protectorsaint of France and of soldiers.

The Frankish kings kept St.Martin's cloak as a relic, carryingit around, particularly into battle.The priest who cared for thecloak (cappa in Latin) was calleda cappellanu. Eventually, allpriests serving in the militarycame to be called cappellani,which in French becamechapelains, and in English, yes,chaplain. The irony of all this isprobably lost on today's milit­ary and its chaplains as muchas it was on the Frankishkings.

Saint Martin of Tours:The Conscientious Objector SaintA heart-warming story of crystallization of beliefs, willful damage of militaryproperty and what could have been a Dishonorable Discharge and brig time,but ended with an administrative separation.By Marius van Hoogstraten

St. Martin of Tours

Source: www.wikipedia.com

PAGE 4MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK

War and peace, and our effort to replace one withthe other, by first filling the whole country with theone, and then leaving.Clearly the other will then logically ensue.Conservatives like it, liberals accept it, I think it's rubbish.By Marius van Hoogstraten

I guess after having spent almost a year beatingup our hope for change, taking its lunch money,and leaving it in an alley crying, the Oslo addressby President Obama was the equivilant of spittingin its face and saying bad things about its mother.

Of course we always knew he was not a paci­fist. Of course we knew he thought of the Afghanwar as “the good war.”

So it should not have been such a surprise thathe would name Gandhi and King and then disreg­ard them as merely moral truths, saying that as apresident, he obviously “cannot be guided by theirprinciples alone”; that he would add the platitudethat a nonviolent movement couldn't havestopped Hitler – who is, we learn, analogous toBin Laden. I hadn't heard that for a while.

Okay, fine, we think – so he's a realist. He's apragmatic man, who has high ideals in his heartbut also faces “the world as it is”. He knows thatwhen push comes to shove, in the mud of thetrenches far away from crispy clear absolutes, dif­ficult choices have to be made. Obama is tellingus war isn't about “good” versus “evil”. Its notquite that simple. Kind of refreshing actually.

“For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.”Oh.

I usually recoil a bit when the man in charge ofthe world's most powerful military starts calling theenemy “evil."

Not necessarily because I don't believe evil ex­ists. Nor is it because I'm still not really sure whothe enemy in Afghanistan is, why they are so evilor how exactly escalation will turn them good.

I think my recoil has to do with the distinction Imade earlier between clear absolutes on the onehand and the mess of the real world on the other.I can accept people saying the brute violence of

the real world makes it impossible to adhere tothe high principles of morality. It is somethingelse, however, to use those high principles ofmorality to justify the violence of the real world.Using perceived moral truth to justify a position ofpower and the use of lethal violence that comeswith it means assuming a moral clarity I believeno human being has.

In between “good and evil” and our capacity toknow and identify them, there is a great deal ofhuman imperfection that gets in the way. Can thepresident really see Truth clearly enough to merithis judgment of so many lives and deaths? Or ishe, rather, taking this Truth into his own hands,using it, turning it into “truths” that can be used atwill?

Really, with someone in charge of so manyguns, I'd prefer a realist. “Good” and “evil” arebest left to activists, who can use it to criticize thePowers' indifference to human suffering – but forthe love of God, don't let the Powers use thoseterms themselves. It's cynical. It's dangerous.And it's why US Presidents are always so scary –this one, clearly, being no exception.

http://th03.deviantart.net/fs41/300W/i/2009/061/1/2/Obama___Luther_King_by_BenHeine.jpg

PAGE 5MILITARY COUNSELING NETWORK

It can be hard enough to wait for something thathas a deadline. André Shepherd has had to learnthe art of open­ended waiting. The one year an­niversary marking the date on which André appliedfor asylum in Germany has come and gone, andthere is no clear answer as to when a decision willbe met. The decision to take this path was not aneasy one, a fact easy to comprehend. The implica­tions of such a decision are many, and require an­swers to questions many of us are never forced tothink about: Will I ever see my family again? Will Isee the country of my birth again? Will I be able toadapt to my new country, the new language? Butwhile the decision to seek asylum and leaveeverything behind was not easy, for André it wasthe right one.

After attending college, struggling to find a joband living in his car for a few months, André wasconvinced by the Army recruiter that fulfillment andpurpose could be found in the military. After Basicand Advanced Individual Training, André deployedwith his unit to Iraq where he repaired the deadlyApache attack helicopters, helping to keep thembattle­ready and dangerous. Over time, as hebegan to have more interactions with Iraqi civilianson base, he started to question the violence anddestruction that he was a crucial part of: Why arewe here? How many lives have I helped extin­guish? What right do we have to be here? Theanswers he found to these questions fell short of ajustification for the United States presence in Iraq.

As beliefs tend to do, this uneasiness and uncer­tainty grew slowly, finally into an objection, and thefeeling that he could no longer take part in the Iraqwar. Without fitting the United States military defin­ition of a conscientious objector, which requires themember to be against all war in all form, and not asingle, specific war, André was left in a difficult situ­

ation: Ignore his conscience and continue to con­tribute to the mission of searching out and des­troying the enemies of the United States, whichalso led to the death and misery of civilians, orlisten to his conscience even when it might meanimprisonment, discrimination, and leaving behindthe life he once knew.

In the end, André determined that signing a mil­itary contract should not require that he ignore hisconscience. Following his conviction, André wentAWOL from the military in 2007. In November of2008, André formally placed a request for asylumto the German government.

It has been over a year since André began hisquest for asylum in Germany. It has been a yearof speaking tours and adjustments for André. Hehas found many supporters of his cause in Ger­many, the U.S and around the world. Not surpris­ingly, a decision on his case has yet to be made.The implications of the decision are not insignific­ant. A negative decision calls into question thesincerity of the German criticism of the Iraq war. Apositive decision could encourage other soldiersto step off their base in Germany and exercisetheir conscience, a conscience often trapped bythe all or nothing form of American military con­scientious objection.

Sold i er UpdatesA n d r é S h e p h e r dBy Daniel Hershberger

ation: Ignore his conscience and continue to con­tribute to the mission of searching out and des­troying the enemies of the United States, whichalso led to the death and misery of civilians, orlisten to his conscience even when it might meanimprisonment, discrimination, and leaving behindthe life he once knew.

In the end, André determined that signing a mil­itary contract should not require that he ignore hisconscience. Following his conviction, André wentAWOL from the military in 2007. In November of2008, André formally placed a request for asylumto the German government.

It has been over a year since André began hisquest for asylum in Germany. It has been a yearof speaking tours and adjustments for André. Hehas found many supporters of his cause in Ger­many, the U.S and around the world. Not surpris­ingly, a decision on his case has yet to be made.The implications of the decision are not insignific­ant. A negative decision calls into question thesincerity of the German criticism of the Iraq war. Apositive decision could encourage other soldiersto step off their base in Germany and exercisetheir conscience, a conscience often trapped bythe all or nothing form of American military con­scientious objection.

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Soldiers that we work with oftenexplain how what they had expec­ted, or what they had been told toexpect, could not have been fur­ther from reality. Young men andwomen who were told that whatthey were looking for in life couldbe found in the military have cometo us with their problems, theirpain, and their reality. Theirs is of­ten a reality of nightmares, broken­ness, intimidation, and frustration.A not uncommon reality is that ofthe wounded soldier, whosesevere physical and mental prob­lems are being ignored or evenmocked by those that are chargedwith their care, in the end with theirlives. And then there is the realityof realizing they are part of an or­ganization that studies violenceand the most effective ways ofkilling, a realization that increasesthe weight on the conscience. Atsurface level, it is college money, a

...from page 1 career, and adventure that are be­ing offered, but what about thereality of seeing civilians die?What about the reality of losing aleg in an IED attack?

If they should have known bet­ter, the question is then, how?With the military selling itself bythe $10,000 enlistment bonus andthe promise of college money anda career, and the media saying re­latively little about the reality ofwar, and society reinforcing thevalue and honor of military ser­vice, how are these young peoplesupposed to know to look behindthe show room window to findtruth? Our hope with our workand this newsletter is to help in­form those that are consideringthe military as a path, and to helpthose that did and now want out toknow that they still have options,even if they didn't know better.