LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This interesting article details the battle between a Christian soldier who was a concientious objector, and his commander, who was an evangelical pastor and who argued against him in the court hearing.

At 10:30 a.m., on Oct. 14, 2005, nearly two dozen people gathered in a room at Fort Sill, Okla., to discuss the case of a soldier who did not want to go to war.

Specialist Jake Malloy was an Army cook and, by most accounts, such a nice guy that his friends worried that strangers might mistake his kindness for weakness. Yet not even his fellow soldiers, some of whom had already testified to Malloy’s uncommon decency, doubted the strength of his convictions.

To refuse a direct order to take up arms — an act of insubordination that might lead to a lengthy prison term — would require just that kind of fortitude.

In many ways, the hearing at Fort Sill was a formality. Malloy had already met with an Army chaplain, a psychiatrist and Maj. Donna Abrokwa, the officer assigned to investigate Malloy’s claim that his religious beliefs prohibited him from using lethal force against another human being.

Abrokwa assembled a record of the case that seemed to fit the Army’s definition of conscientious objection: “a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war of any form ... by reason of religious training or belief.”

One young woman who, like Malloy, served with the 1011th Quartermaster Company, told Abrokwa that the force of Malloy’s belief and his ability to express it made her ashamed of her relatively lesser passion.

The bulk of the testimony Abrokwa had collected as part of her investigation echoed that sentiment. In fact, only one person at Fort Sill stood up that day to challenge Jake Malloy: Maj. Paul Wynn, his commanding officer.

In most cases, a commanding officer is no more important than any other witness in a conscientious objection proceeding.

Army regulations acknowledge the “personal and subjective nature” of conscientious objection, and the path to a decision is presumed to be nonadversarial.

Most of the “evidence” is written; the hearing is considered “informal,” according to the guidelines; and witnesses are not required to testify under oath.

However, right from the start, Wynn had taken an aggressive role in challenging Malloy’s claim, even going so far as to ask the Army’s judge advocate general to begin court-martial proceedings.

The hearing at Fort Sill lasted three hours, the last two of which were dominated by Wynn’s sometimes fierce questioning of Malloy’s interpretation of the Bible.

It seems that even Christians of the same denomination have differences of opinion on who should fight in war, and why.