It will come as no surprise to anyone here that there are a number of soldiers who are opposed to the war in Iraq, and those soldiers, myself included, are opposed for many different reasons. Opposition can range from a willingness to support the action while selfishly trying to get out to true concientious objection to all war, although it usually falls somewhere in the middle. The reaction to that distaste for military action can also spur many different kinds of actions. There are two soldiers in my platoon with just those kinds of polar reactions. One of them makes me a little sick from his disregard for his responsibilities; the other soldier makes me proud to know her. I don't have any particular purpose in telling you about them, except to get it off my chest, but here it is.
The first soldier, who we will call James for privacy's sake (not that he deserves any regard from me), hates the fact that he has beed deployed. It's not that he opposes the war, although he probably does in the most selfish way possible, he just doesn't feel like he should have to be here. I don't have any real problem with his feeling the deployment is unjustified, but I do have a very real disagreement with his actions. James, frankly put, is a malingerer.
When a soldier is injured or sick in such a way he is unable to perform his job well without hurting himself, he goes to the doctor and gets whats known as a profile. The profile states what a soldier can and cannot do based on the doctor's examination. Generally speaking, the doctors who actually sign the profiles are very busy men and women and so it is relatively easy to get them to write whatever you want on your profile. While most soldiers try to avoid any document that would keep them from performing their job in a war zone, there are occaisonally soldiers who take full advantage off the process. James is one of those soldiers. And it's not like the profiles are the only evidence of his lazyness. He weighs in at well over 250 pounds, and I can assure you that it's not muscle. He's often late for work and rarely makes any effort when he's there.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a rocket attack on our base. They are relatively common were I'm at, and this one was no worse than any other. James, along with several other people in our platoon was a little over 30 feet from the blast. There was no personal injury or damage to equipment, at least not until the next day, when James was struck with mysterious headaches. Because, generally speaking, the army has to give you whatever medical care you request if they can, he managed to wrangle a trip farther north for a CAT scan (leaving us a man down) where the doctor told him in no uncertain terms that there wasn't anything wrong with him and returned him with an extensive profile anyway.
James is not allowed to look at a computer screen for longer then two hours at a time and is allowed to leave for a nap whenever he feels its necessary. It's not that he was of much use before, but he now has a paper that allows him to do even less work then he did before. Many off you are disgusted with me right now. You are thinking that I'm cold-hearted. But I assure you that is not the mistake. I know James quite well and while it is possible that his symptoms are real (I'm not a doctor by any means), his history has shown him to be the guy who's knee is fine until he has to run and then it starts too hurt.
On the other hand, is my good friend, who I'm going to call Marry (although I don't think she'd care either way). She has recently filed for conscientious objector status and is facing an incredible uphill battle. As part of the process she had to be interviewed by a chaplain and another officer in our Brigade. The Chaplain wrote in his report that he couldn't believe she was opposed to hurting another person because she is an athiest who believes in evolution. I'll let you wrap your heads around that yourself. The report from the investigating officer was even worse. Aside from her many factual mistakes, she also proposed that Marry was just trying to get out of her deployment and didn't really believe what she was saying. Her justification for that claim was that Marry had not attempted to report any possible war crimes. The obvious problem with that statement is that there haven't been any war crimes for her to report. Our job doesn't involve us interacting in any way with any foreign combatants or prisoners. I'm not even certain that there has even been a situation where a war crime could have been committed in her presence.
It has been fairly clear from the beginning that, no matter the evidence from whatever source, the decision has been made in our Brigade to deny her CO status. I can't even begin to fathom that decision. Having talked with her a great deal, it is clear to me that she is morally opposed to even firing a rifle, no matter the circumstances (a position she reached since joining the army by the way). To be honest, I dread the thought of her being forced to stay in and having to fight next to her. I'm pretty sure I'd be on my own and fending for both of us. I suppose I'd rather have her then James, at least she wouldn't take a nap, but that's another thing altogether.