The Army should grant conscientious objector status to Pfc. Michael Barnes, a Fort Richardson-based paratrooper who had his request for that designation denied last year, U.S. Magistrate John D. Roberts concluded Tuesday.
while training for deployment to Iraq as part of the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team at Fort Richardson, he grew increasingly troubled by the tales he heard from soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq
"These stories included making the locals (do) degrading things so they could laugh at them, abusing the kids and taking others lives with ease. ... I told myself it's not really like that -- that's just a few soldiers' perceptions of their experience."
after his unit landed in Kuwait, then Iraq
he began to witness bad behavior firsthand
"How would I justify to the Lord that participating in war is serving him?
I cannot. War is evil, and nothing but evil comes from it. Many of those who participate in it lose their souls along the way."
clipped from: www.democraticunderground.com