Reply #3: This is a rather personal subject for me, so I'll weigh in

[IrateCitizen]

First off, I am a junior officer in the US Army Reserve. Secondly, I am probably as far outside of the political spectrum as one can get -- I'm not left, center or right, I'm just out of the scale altogether. Thirdly, I have been a conscientious objector applicant for approximately the past year.

While I have applied for a CO discharge, I will be the first person to admit that my time in the Army has taught me some wonderful things. First and foremost, it refined in me the people skills to be an effective leader. It's something you have to learn pretty quickly when you're 23 years old and in charge of a platoon of 30 people. Secondly, it is an environment in which you are forced to work with people who hail from vastly different backgrounds compared to your own -- and to work together as one team. Thirdly, the values that the military instills in people are positive ones. In the Army, we have a core set of values -- Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage (LDRSHIP) -- that EVERYONE is expected to adopt into the core of their being.

That being said, it is also important to remember the role of the military in our society. We live in a culture in which we, as only 4% of the world's population, consume 25% of the world's resources. This is what George H.W. Bush referred to as "The American Way of Life," and it is, in his words, "non-negotiable." Maintaining such a disproportionate (and wasteful) consumption of the earth's resources requires a military capable of projecting power anywhere on the globe -- and a willingness to use it. In order to fulfill this purpose, the role of the military is to train killers. While it may only be the specific role of those in the combat arms to actually physically kill other human beings in combat, the fact remains that all of the other people in the armed forces -- whether they be mechanics, administrators, cooks, whatever -- are there for the sole purpose of SUPPORTING the ability of the combat arms troops to kill.

I'm an Army Engineer. It's not my primary role to kill in combat -- although it's a distinct possibility. But I also came to the conclusion, based on my moral and religious beliefs, that I could not, in good conscience, assist in the mass slaughter of other human beings. Seeing all others as part of the same "divine spark", how on earth could I act in ways to extinguish that spark? I would be extinguishing that spark in myself in the process.

I'm not discounting the positive PERSONAL values that are taught in the military. But the fact remains that the role of the military is to kill -- PERIOD. There just has to be a better way of teaching these values than inside an institution that must succeed in debasing humanity so completely in order to achieve its stated purpose. We must find a way to instill these noble values without glorifying the killing machine that the military truly is.

This isn't a knock on Clark, just a general disagreement with the incomplete premise of the article.