Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Marine opposed to war ordered discharged

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

By Nicholas Provenzo from The Rule of Reason,cross-posted by MetaBlog

I came across this" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070403/ap_on_...bjector_1">this story on the AP wire:

A Marine lance corporal who said he had an aversion to killing and participating in war must be released from the military as a conscientious objector, a federal judge ruled.

The Marine Corps Reserves must discharge Robert Zabala, 23, by mid-April, under the ruling.

Zabala said he was troubled during boot camp in 2003 when a fellow recruit committed suicide and a superior used profanities to belittle the recruit. Zabala said he was "abhorred by the blood lust (the superior) seemed to possess," according to a 2006 court petition for conscientious-objector status.

Another boot camp instructor showed recruits a "motivational clip" showing Iraqi corpses, explosions, gun fights and rockets set to a heavy metal song that included the lyrics, "Let the bodies hit the floor," the petition said. Zabala said he cried, while other recruits nodded their heads in time with the beat.

"The sanctity of life that formed the moral center of petitioner's life was being challenged," his attorney, Stephen Collier, wrote in a court filing.

U.S. District Judge James Ware, who served 13 years in the Army Reserves, said he was convinced of Zabala's sincerity about his struggles to "reconcile the demands of duty with the demands of conscience."

Zabala, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who followed some Buddhist-related traditions, was previously denied conscientious-objector status after applying in 2004, court records show.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this story. The fact that Zabala's Drill Instructor thought that he had the right to engage in a profanity-laden diatribe against a dead recruit in front of a literally captive audience is appalling. The display of the "motivational clip" set to heavy metal music is equally appalling; it is an attempt to engender an emotional frenzy rather than develop the calm and professional demeanor that is the hallmark of the Corps.

At the same time, I think Zabala misses the forest for the trees. If you value your life, you must confront those who seek to take that life from you; the Marines are simply America's premiere institution dedicated to this principle. And while individual Marine leaders may do things that one may rightfully find appalling, the institution itself serves a clear moral purpose. Zabala says that "the sanctity of life" is his moral center, yet he ultimately blanches at what the Marines must do to protect that sanctity.

At the most fundamental, the enemy lives by a death code and we do not. In the face of this truth Zabala has elected to become a pacifist. He has taken a stand that if practiced by all in the West would allow evil to win without so much as a fight. Of all the evils presented in this story, it is this one that I find to be the most vicious.

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002428.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems like everything worked out. We have a volunteer military, and the primary job of anyone in the military is to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Surprisingly enough this entails killing people on occasion. If the kid was confused about his job description than the right thing to do was to discharge him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think anyone who joins any military service (with the possible excpetion of the Coast Guard) and doesn't realize he may have to kill people, is mentally unfit to serve in any case. What do they think weapons training is for? Hunting?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think anyone who joins any military service (with the possible excpetion of the Coast Guard) and doesn't realize he may have to kill people, is mentally unfit to serve in any case.
This is really the central point, as far as I can see. A child of 17 who gets carried away and grabs the gun for some irrational reason might be immature, but anybody who can spend 13 years in The Marines, yes The Marines, has got to either be criminally dishonest or have a serious screw loose. He could not possibly be confused about the nature ofthe military. Though I find it bizarre and then some that they would actually fight to keep the guy in The Corps.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The military should be considered a job like any other. If the guy wants to leave, he should be able to quit.

If you can't get enough people to join the military to do what it is doing, then what it is doing isn't in keeping with what the population wants.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which could include penalties for premature termination of contract.

Certainly.

The amount of training required to perform some military roles requires some expectation of a long term commitment.

But this is a civil rather than criminal matter.

Edited by punk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The discharged Marine wasn't in the Service for 13 years. That was the judge. The Marine was only 23.

Considering that he volunteered for the Corps, I think it much more likely that his real objection was to the methods (diatribe, "music" "video," etc.), but that the law didn't provide him an avenue for leaving the Corps (or modifying his assignment therein) solely on those grounds. It looks like he had to couch it in the conscientious-objector doctrine in order to get out of the situation. Perhaps I'm being overly generous in imputing foreknowledge of the killing aspect of Corps service. Or perhaps I'm looking for yet another example of how American law and culture sometimes treat religious beliefs as sacrosanct (but I'm a Buddhist) while pooh-poohing legitimate rational criticism (showing that video was inappropriate because...)

-Q

Edit: replaced omitted preposition

Edited by Qwertz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...