The US Army sergeants waited on the couch, studying the floor. Family dogs skirted the sofa, growling. From time to time, one of the soldiers extended a conciliatory hand to them.
On the floor, sixth-grader Rebecca Aguayo played a video game; her twin rollerbladed outside. Just one voice fed the tension in the living room: Their mother, Helga, sat in an armchair, bawling. “It was the ugly crying, with the snot and everything,” Mrs. Aguayo recalls, “I wanted them to see how much they were hurting us.”
Her husband, Army Spc. AgustÃn Aguayo, hurried around their military base apartment in central Germany that afternoon, under orders to assemble his battle gear. Two-and-a-half years earlier, in February 2004, the medic had applied to leave the Army as a conscientious objector (CO), someone whose beliefs forbid him to participate in war. While his claim was being evaluated, Aguayo served a year in Iraq with an unloaded weapon; when the claim was rejected, he sued for another review.
While I absolutely disagree with his views, I respect him for the courage of his convictions. Unlike people who have in the past fled the country rather than serve or face the music for refusing, he chose to stay and accept the consequences. This speaks highly of his character if not the correctness of his opinions.
May just be that I have been out too long (since 1962), but I always thought that COs could serve as medics, which he did…and that medics were NOT armed. Perhaps there are no clear lines in the U S Army any more, in which case I am glad that I am out.
Obviously this man is putting his honour and his life on the line in this matter.
He felt a duty to serve his country and he does his duty as a medic. He goes into harms way and follows his orders and while doing so, he helps those who are wounded in performing their duty.
AND he does it all with an un-loaded weapon.
I don’t think he can be faulted in any of this.
Chip, I suspect that medics in Iraq & Afghanistan carry their weapons, as the folks they are fighting have not signed the Geneva Convention, are not a regular formed military and have no compunction whatsoever, in murdering their captives, particularly I suppose, one who was wearing a cross on his sleeve.
It is not that the lines are blurred by the US Army, but rather they are blurred by those who fight from the shadows, bushwhacking, ambushing and murdering any who cross their path.
I’m completely unhappy with the gentleman in this story, and unsympathetic as well. Not that I don’t feel for him, seems like a pleasant chap and I admire his convictions.
Unfortunately, nobody drafted him. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to join up to any service. Anyone who joins the armed services without the realization that they have only 2 real functions:
1. Kill people
2. Break things
should be disqualified from the forces up front on either cowardice or lack of intelligence. Maybe that should be a question on the entrance exam? Even if he has “come to new convictions” then he should finish his term of service and keep his promises. I can think of no other reasons why this man has decided at this point not to fight. Everybody fights. Every one are soldiers once you sign up.
The whole point of an “all volunteer service” is to make sure that only committed warfighters show up.
KTF!…mrb
They should transfer him to a base hospital or a military prision. He and his superiors are at fault in that he served a year in a frontline formation with an unloaded weopon – his comrades were not being properly supported in that they started out down one effective.
There but for the grace of God go I. I served during the Viet Nam war, but not in a combat position. If I had been put in a position where I had to pull the trigger I would have been a danger to myself and the troops around me, and probably little danger to the enemy.
Through an article in the April 2005 [url=”http://www.rtis.com/touchstone/april2005/p3.html”][i]Touchstone[/i][/url], I picked up the book [url=http://www.killology.com/books.htm][i]On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society[/i][/url] by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. While I’ve not read the book closely, what was most startling for me as I thumbed through it was Grossman’s demonstration of how few soldiers, even in the midst of pitched battle, ever actually fired their guns. His analysis of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, for example, is simply stunning, and he vividly shows how it had nothing whatsoever to do with cowardice or lack of intelligence. It seems that most men must be taught to kill, and that teaching a soldier to fire his weapon is only one small part of that.
There is much that might be commented on but the following quote has my total attention:
“‘It was the ugly crying, with the snot and everything,’ Mrs. Aguayo recalls, ‘I wanted them to see how much they were hurting us.'”
There was a bit of discussion in our family about the granddaughters not being allowed to cry. I thought that girls need to express emotion and preventing that bordered on child abuse. On the other hand, I got total agreement on NEVER allowing the girls to use their emotions as punishment for the parents, nor to express rebellion. I think that my granddaughters will grow up to be sensitive and feeling women who are in control of their feelings. Mrs. Aguayo apparently never learned such.
Mike: As a company commander in a training company(in peacetime), I believed the same things you expressed. I had two soldierettes and one soldier who filed as COs in 1984. I believed one female was genuinely a CO, who was suddenly faced with the harsh reality of the Army’s mission. Her compatriots believed her, also. The other female was applying because her soon-to-be 2LT husband was going to a different assignment. The male, I think, hated the regimentation and didn’t respect the knowledge and experience of his NCOs and officers. Only one successfully passed the board and was discharged: the first one. Prior to that, when I was an NCO instructor in 1975, a couple of my female students suffered from a sudden onset of reality, and had some doubts about their ability and desire to serve in an intelligence unit. I was able to help them decide that they could. No one can judge what goes on in someone’s conscience; all we can do is make our best guess. In some cases the motivation is obvious, in others not so much. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to depend on someone to watch my back in combat who felt like that young man.
Rev. Tibbetts: The data about the lack of active fire in WWII came from a study by Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall (SLAM). After that study was published, Army marksmanship training was changed. During the Viet Nam war, soldiers were reportedly firing a lot more in combat, even if they were behind cover, firing wildly without aiming. Steel downrange is very effective. Other studies conducted during my time in service also revealed that soldiers don’t fight for ideology, or the objective, but they do fight for their buddies. The principle of individual replacements in Viet Nam adversely affected unit cohesion. Now units are rotated in and out as units, not individuals. They fight much more effectively that way. In my experience, young soldiers have no problems killing the enemy, especially if they are in a cohesive unit.
#9CM, loved your point about soldiers fighting for their buddies. My DAd was a drill sergeant in Army, out in ’70, told me one time “We never put a single guy in a foxhole, always put at least two preferably three or four. Two guys are 2x as brave as one, they are like four times.” It was an exponential equation for him.
KTF!…mrb
#9 [i]In my experience, young soldiers have no problems killing the enemy, especially if they are in a cohesive unit. [/i]
Lt. Col. Grossman writes about how Brig. Gen. Marshall’s study brought about significant changes in the training of soldiers, and the review (I’ve apparently set my copy of the book somewhere I don’t remember) I linked speaks of rates rising to 95% in the Vietnam War. Clearly such training has been very effective (though, like anything else, not perfect), and I expect that has been a very good thing in terms both of deploying troops (fewer necessary to accomplish the objective) and casualties (also fewer).
And I honestly have not had a great deal of patience with people who enlisted in one of the Services, accepted the benefits, and then cried, “Oh my gosh, you want me to fight in a war?” For indeed, the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.
Yet as I listen to my father finally begin to tell of his experiences in WW2 or read messages from my seminary roommate who has served as a Chaplain in Iraq, I grow more thankful that I am of an age where I did not have to worry about the draft or being called into the military, and more thankful for those willing to serve our nation that way — and quite a bit less willing to haul out the “coward” description, especially of those who, like Spc. Aguayo, have experienced the battlefield in this, or any, war.
#11 Rev. Tibbetts: I am reminded of something written by James Dunnigan in his delightful book, “How to Make War” (Dunnigan was the only analyst to make his way onto TV in the pre-Gulf War I days and explain ahead of time that the Iraqi mech forces stood no chance against 7th Corps and Gen. Fred Franks’ forces) which drove a stake through my heart the first time I read it, truly powerful stuff. Here, let me get it down so I don’t misquote him……
Ok, here we go: Chapter 1 Page 15:
If you’ve never read them, the “How to Make War” books are excellent military analysis, in my humble opinion.
KTF!….mrb
Since we are adding quotes; I’ll take J. S. Mill
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself”
I have been to war and, and as a chaplain dealt with COs. I admire Mr. Aguayo for his integrity in receiving the consequences for his actions. In an all volunteer military force there is little justification for being a CO. If he had not run away he would not have been placed in the deserter status. He would have been placed in a non-deployable position and discharged, possibly on honorable terms, and would not have been sent to prison. His CO status is not the real issue.
Back to the Mill quote…
While war in and of itself is a terrible thing, the courage, integrity, character and powerful faith of the men and women I served with reflects the better nature of man and, dare I say, the grace of God.
Without people of conviction who accept the vocation to be warriors, war would be the ugliest of things.
IMHO, Mr Aguayo is full of it. He volunteered. He had ample time to get out legally after becoming a so-called CO, but he stayed on and took the paycheck. He would not support his buddies in times of danger. He got off easy. In time of war, the purpose of the military is clear. It is to seek out, engage and destroy the enemy before he destroys you. This guy makes me sick. BTW, our son served in Desert Storm II and in Iraq.
“He would not support his buddies in times of danger.” CharlesB, the man served as a medic in Iraq, with an unloaded weapon!
And yes, for at least the last 20 years (I was in from 1985-1989) medics have carried loaded weapons and NOT worn the Red Cross armband. This is for a very good reason: it makes you a target, and a man being shot at feels better if he can shoot back.
Shooting medics was practiced by the Japanese in WW2, and by the VC and NVA in Vietnam. It’s a simple military calculus: killing a medic means that the lives he would have saved, won’t be saved.
So, unfortunately, COs don’t seem to be able to serve as medics any more; they are expected to kill just like other soldiers.
Medics are armed for self-defense and the defense of patients, and when you consider the quality of our enemies for the last fifty years or so you can see why.
There was a stereotype in WWII that the puniest man in a squad was usually the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) man, even though it weighed twenty pounds. This had a basis of sorts, since a soldier perceived as unlikely to engage with the M1 would still engage with the BAR, because the sound was very distinctive; if he weren’t firing, everyone would know it.
Having served in Iraq as the only person in the battalion who did not carry a loaded weapon when outside the main bases, I see no courage or nobility in his carrying an unloaded weapon. It is a violation of policy and it kept him from defending the wounded and fellow soldiers. Doctors and Corpsman/Medics are armed for self defense and for protection of the wounded. Our Corpsmen were trained in the same way as every other Marine.
As mentioned above medical personnel are a preferred target of insurgencies. Senior officers and chaplains are also on the high priority list. U. S. policy has changed to allow doctors and medics to carry weapons; only chaplains remain unarmed.
Father Reed, the “unarmed medic” policy was based on the assumption that medical personnel would not be fired upon. That assumption no longer holds. Nevertheless I don’t see how an unarmed medic, especially one willing to continue to serve the wounded under fire, is such a liability. Corpsmen in the Pacific war may not have worn red cross insignia, but they didn’t carry weapons either AFAIK.
The unarmed chaplaincy goes back a LOT further; ancient tradition forbids clergy from shedding blood. Of course, you could get around it the way some medievals did: carry a mace! (or the modern equivalent, a taser.) Doesn’t give you a lot of range; but in a firefight, presumably someone else is engaged in throwing steel downrange, so you don’t have to worry about it.
NWOhio,
Thanks for informing of something I have experienced firsthand.
The unarmed chaplaincy is not universal. In fact the unarmed status of U.S. military chaplains is a policy of our own institution. It has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention’s non-combatant status for chaplains. Chaplains from other countries are allowed to carry weapons without violating that status.
The chaplain’s primary job is ministry and not sending steel downrange. A weapon places us in a precarious position. Yes it could be used to defend the wounded to whom we are ministering, but it does make us less distinguishable as non-combatants. Throughout history there are accounts of chaplains using force to protect themselves and others in the heat of battle. Thanks be to God I have never been in that spot, but I would have a very difficult time not defending myself if should ever come to that point. I have a responsibility to my family and to those to whom I minister to stay alive. In my mind to simply stand by and be killed when I could act defensively would be quite selfish. I do not carry a weapon, I would choose to use one only as an absolute last resort. I pray that I will never be in that situation and that I will be guided by faith if I ever do.
Fr. Reed,
If we were limited to talking about things we have experienced firsthand, we couldn’t talk about much. “You can’t understand me, you’re not a chaplain/gay/woman/black/whatever!”
The armed chaplaincy is an innovation, though one dating back to medieval times when clergy, as I said, carried maces to get ’round the ancient proscription of clergy shedding blood.
Certainly you can talk of things you haven’t experienced firsthand, but the inexperienced should not be surprised at pushback when they attempt to instruct experts. You can talk to me about fire support planning, too, but you may not get any replies along the lines of “Really? I had no idea!” from me. I did such planning for years, and you probably haven’t done it at all.
I suspect Father Reed’s tone was due to the fact that he had just posted something which implicitly established that he was well aware of what you had to say.
Ed, my comment about unarmed medics was to establish what Fr. Reed denied: to wit, that unarmed medics were valuable to their units. I implicitly used the historical record for that.
My comment about the source of the unarmed chaplaincy was rooted in Church history, not my own experience.
I’ve experienced officers like you, too. From below.
How’d you like to be lying there, leg blown off, bleeding to death save the hand on the artery, when the enemy surprises you and the medic…standing over you. Your medic says, “Gee, I don’t believe in killing, so you just kill us…”
How’d you like to be in the foxhole, middle of Febuary, somewhere in the NOrthern part of Europe, with a guy who would not fire?
Come on people. Wake up.
While it is true that Corpsmen/Medics were unarmed in WWII that is not the case today. No one (except chaplains) were allowed “outside the wire” without a weapon. There was no choice to be had. Mr. Aguayo was violating the regulations of the force.
That is not noble that is insubordination.
Mr. Lee, I doubt that you would survive anyhow if your medic were so busy shooting that he couldn’t tend to your severed artery. And the situation you describe is silly. The only people that survive “fighting back” when someone has the drop on them are in movies.
Somehow or other, CO medics have managed to get the job done in the past. Consider, for example, Thomas Bennett and Desmond Doss.
I’m very sorry that military regulations now make it difficult or impossible for COs to continue in the tradition of these two men. Is it insubordination to tell your CO, “Sir, I am conscientiously unable to take human life; please allow me to tend the wounded without carrying a weapon”?
Violating regulations is more noble than violating one’s conscience. The Army may not have granted Mr. Aguayo’s CO status, but his consistent actions, on and off the battlefield, have shown that it is real.
#22. You’ve never seen staff NCOs doing fire planning? I have.
I’m curious as to why exactly you think I’m whatever sort of officer you think I am. I haven’t even said I was one.
Tell you what, what’s my service and MOS?
Ed, before my foot displaces my tonsils, I’m going to apologize. I knew I should not have written that last line. It’s always a bad idea to get snippy.
More coming by private e-mail if you want to continue to reminisce.