Michael Sharp speaks about his work with Military Counseling Network at the Center for Peace & Nonviolence in South Bend, Ind. Photo: Tom Price

Vol. 1, No. 5 — September 2007
Two paths to peace
By Michael Sharp

Growing up in a Mennonite home, I learned what a conscientious objector (CO) was. My father and grandfather were both Mennonite pastors, and I learned from them that COs don't go to war, they don't bear arms, and they don't join the military. COs understand Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount to be a guide for our life today, not for some time in the future. They understand Jesus' life to be normative. I am one of these COs who learned these lessons and refuses to fight.

As a military counsellor for US servicemembers, many of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, I've had many opportunities to talk about peace theology and what I as a Christian pacifist believe. What I've learned from these service members, though, is that one doesn't have to grow up in a peace church to come to the conclusion that war is wrong. One doesn't need to have a lineage of Mennonite pastors. For some servicemembers, the combat experience, the first-hand knowledge of the effects of military force, is more than enough to lead a person to a CO position.

Josh* is one example of this. He grew up wanting nothing more than to join the Army, and he specifically desired a job specialty in combat arms. He knew that he would be sent to Iraq. That's what he wanted; he wasn't joining to sit behind a desk. His family had a tradition of military service, and he had no reason to think his service could be considered anything but honorable. After his training, he was sent to a duty station in Germany and within weeks was landing in Baghdad International Airport. His unit saw regular combat as he had expected. They killed the "enemy" as he had expected. But not everything was as he had pictured it.

For one, there were the dead civilians: those in the wrong place at the wrong time, those innocents that were casually referred to as "collateral damage" and only occasionally reported on. Josh thought he might have been able to push the dead civilians out of his mind.

The injured ones were too much, though. They didn't lie quietly on the ground like the dead. No, the bleeding living bodies cried and screamed and he was at least indirectly responsible.

One little girl who had been shot in the leg still haunts him. He knew she would live, but the way she cried, and the way she looked at him with a complete lack of understanding for what he had done was too much. That girl didn't speak any English, but Josh heard the message loud and clear. What had she ever done to him that caused him and his unit to shoot her in the leg (even accidentally)? What could any six-year-old girl possibly do to deserve this?

Josh knew that this kind of thing could happen. This was the lamentable tragedy of modern warfare, but it was his job to "soldier on." His superiors made this abundantly clear.

Josh tried to do just that. What was the alternative? Abandon his brothers-in-arms? Disgrace his father and grandfather and uncles who had fought before him? Go to jail for refusing? Surely he would get over this temporary inconvenience of conscience.

Unfortunately for the Army, he didn't get over it. After a little over 12 months in Iraq, he applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector and refused to take part in any more combat-related actions.

Josh was not a theologian. But his was a sincere, deeply held objection to war that came through his very practical, real-life experience in combat.

As he wrote in his petition for discharge, "When it came down to it, I had to decide whether I was willing to personally be responsible for another innocent person being killed. No one else had to live with it, but me, not my sergeant, not my company commander, me."

*Name has been changed.

Learn more about Michael Sharp's ministry assignment in the mission directory.