Testimony: Tyler Boudreau
“When I first got back, I wasn’t sleeping very much, about an hour or two a night…I would spend the duration of the night reading about the war…I just needed to be in Iraq all the time….My body was home but my head was still there.” – Tyler Boudreau – former US Marine Captain, Iraq War veteran, and author of Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: Logan Mehl-Laituri
“If I could serve our country without killing, I never would have been a conscientious objector…Christ bid me drop my weapon, and I had no choice but to respond.” – Logan Mehl-Laituri, US Army veteran with service in Iraq during OIF II and co-founder of Centurion’s Guild, testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: Camilo Mejía (Parts 1 and 2)
“People who paid the price were unarmed civilians…9 out of 10 of the people we killed were unarmed.” – Camilo Mejía, Army veteran and conscientious objector, testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Testimony: Joshua Casteel
“There is no such thing as private conscience…you cannot have a personal feeling about a state of affairs and call it conscience.” – Joshua Casteel, Army veteran and former interrogator at Abu Ghraib, testifies at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Soldiers of Conscience: Camilo Mejia
Camilo Mejia: “Killing Changes You”
Excerpt from the Emmy-nominated documentary Soldiers of Conscience.
Order the DVD here.
Commission Host: Herman Keizer (Parts 1 and 2)
“When you sin against your conscience, you have committed moral suicide.” – Chaplain Herman Keizer – US Army Colonel (ret), Vietnam veteran, and former chair of the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Soldiers of Conscience: Joshua Casteel
Joshua Casteel: “To Love One’s Enemies”
Excerpt from the Emmy-nominated documentary Soldiers of Conscience.
Order the DVD here.
Testimony: Celeste Zappala (Parts 1 and 2)
“For the National Guard and their families there is no recourse to reject wars capriciously begun. For them, their long years of obligation may mean they will lose their families, their jobs, their health, and maybe their lives.” – Celeste Zappala – mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, PA National Guard, killed in Baghdad on April 26, 2004, while searching for WMD – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Testimony: Jacob Diliberto (Parts 1 and 2)
“There was a mythic story that was being told to the American people about what was happening in the war.” – Jacob Diliberto, US Marine veteran of OEF and OIF, testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Testimony: Douglas Krantz
“Our religious tradition is irenic, favoring peace and moderation even with formidable and unreasonable enemies. …Part of the human tragedy is that, while we yearn for peace, we make war.” – Rabbi Douglas Krantz of Congregation B’nai Yisrael – and an Executive Board Member of the Jewish Peace Fellowship – testifies at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: Pamela Lightsey (Parts 1 and 2)
“The goal of war, both for the just war advocate and the pacifist, is peace. One enters war, ultimately, for the peace of the land.” – Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, Associate Vice President and Dean of Students at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Testimony: Nurah-Rosalie P. Jeter Amat’ullah
“In Islam, the use of violence and warfare are strictly proscribed and limited to actions absolutely necessary for the defense of human life and the protection of justice in all situations.” – Sister Nurah-Rosalie P. Jeter Amat’ullah, Executive Director of the Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development, testifies at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: Jonathan Shay
“We need to make it unmistakably clear… that we never want our military leaders to lose moral agency — never, never, never.” – Dr. Jonathan Shay – VA clinical psychiatrist, national PTSD expert, Macarthur Genius winner, and author of “Achilles in Vietnam” and “Odysseus in America” – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: J.E. McNeil
“I am not a pacifist, in spite of being a Quaker…I am a conscientious objector to war. America is a place where many conscientious objectors came seeking religious freedom.” – J.E. McNeil, Executive Director of the Center on Conscience & War, testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Testimony: Camillo “Mac” Bica
“Human beings are not killers by nature. They have to be created…Moral injuries are an inevitable consequence of a sophisticated manipulation and distortion of the recruits’ moral foundations and their moral identities and the profound moral confusion and distress they experience as the horror, the insanity, and the moral gravity of their actions in combat become apparent.” – Dr. Camillo “Mac” Bica – Professor of Philosophy, School of Visual Arts (NYC), former Marine Corps Officer and Vietnam Veteran – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
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Testimony: Chris Hedges
“We are as capable of perpetrating evil as those who oppose us…There are hundreds of thousands of families whom we have plunged into the long perpetual night of grief and pain. I ask that we begin to see pain we endure is pain they endure and that our true brothers and sisters are those who carry this burden.” – Chris Hedges – former war correspondent for the New York Times and author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning – testifying at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War on March 21, 2010.
Commission Welcome: Kaia Stern
“When we punish the soldier who heeds his or her moral conscience, our democracy is in grave danger.” – Rev. Dr. Kaia Stern, Chair of the Truth Commission and Director of the Prison Studies Project at Harvard University, welcoming the audience to the Commission’s Public Hearing at The Riverside Church on March 21, 2010.
Commission Closing: Kaia Stern
“We have seen the embers of conscience that burn in every human being called to war. We have heard voices that echo the resilience of the human spirit, that reveal boundless fidelity, that sing, whisper, and shout our urgent call to action. As witnesses to the trauma of war, we cannot leave this space unchanged. War changes people. And testimony about war has altered us. All of us have listened and heard truth into being. Now that it is with us, we must not forget it.” . – Rev. Dr. Kaia Stern, Chair of the Truth Commission and Director of the Prison Studies Project at Harvard University, providing the closing comments at the Commission’s Public Hearing at The Riverside Church on March 21, 2010.
Huffington Post: This Veterans Day, Honor Those Who Say “No” to Immoral War
by Derrick Crowe
Originally published 11/10/10 at HuffingtonPost.com
November 11 is Veterans Day, the 10th Veterans Day since the Afghanistan War began. The burden of this brutal, futile war falls heaviest on a very small slice of the population: military members and their families. Many of them consider this war immoral, but their rights to object to fighting it on moral grounds are severely limited under current law.
Read the full article here >>
Watch the video below…