Thanks for sharing your experience, Terry. Many jws and ex-jws did not live in that period, like we did. The days of a draft in the US, was eliminated with the set up of a volunteer army. The WTS has been very hypocritical in the case of how it handled similar issues in Mexico and Malawi.https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/malawi-mexico-oath-allegiance.php
TODAY is my 56th anniversary of GOING TO PRISON as a Jehovah's Witness Conscientious Objector
by Terry 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Big Dog
Terry, words fail me. All I can say is that it makes me physically ill to think that you were incarcerated because of those cretins on the GB. I am sickened at the time that you lost from your life obeying the rules dictated by those pond scum in Brooklyn.
To use their phraseology, wouldn't it be fitting that if there is a hell those douchebags be locked in the lowest levels and roasted for all eternity for their crimes. I don't know if even Dante could have envisioned a suitable punishment for them.
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Balaamsass2
I remember getting ready for graduation from high school during the war. I qualified for early graduation but put it off because of the draft. My older JW relatives and the local elders thought it was a real badge of honor to go to prison...I didn't. I had been quietly told about the common rapes of JW's in prison. It wasn't something I wanted to experience. I was glad to get a 1-H at the draft board pending the announced wind-down in Vietnam.
Watchtower has always been ready to sacrifice others as long as it wasn't them.
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BluesBrother
Still, to Terry and the others … at least you did not end up in Vietnam and come home in a box or a wheelchair, like so many did… and your conscience is clear that you did not take part in that unjust war or kill the innocent.
That is seen from a UK perspective. You can tell that I have an anti war outlook and had I been involved, I would have identified with those who burnt their draft card .
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titch
Blues Brothers: You put a different perspective on the Draft, and the Vietnam War that is valid. That brings me to something I've thought about in the past few years. Some of you might be familiar with the documentary that was produced by Ken Burns, and aired on most PBS television stations, here in the United States, a few years ago. It was all about the Vietnam War. After all of the series was aired and done, the "take-away" that I got from it was, that the U.S. involvement in the "conflict" in Vietnam was a complete waste of time, and resources, and lives---lives of young human beings who were drafted, trained, and sent to Vietnam to fight in that military conflict. To die for what? And, what did it gain the United States, or for that matter, Vietnam itself? I'll leave you to decide the answer to that one. OH, BTW, Balaamsass2---I was also classified as "1-H" at that time. It was kind of like a "Holding Pattern Classification" if I remember correctly.. Best Regards, Everyone.----Titch.
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Terry
BluesBrother18 hours ago
Still, to Terry and the others … at least you did not end up in Vietnam and come home in a box or a wheelchair, like so many did… and your conscience is clear that you did not take part in that unjust war or kill the innocent.
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As I mentioned (above) that would NOT have been my fate because ALTERNATE SERVICE
legally provided me with the option of non-military COMMUNITY SERVICE instead - and by
*double refusing* I and the other Brothers were guaranteed to be of NO SERVICE to anybody.
Our time was utterly wasted. THAT is my regret.
For some peculiar reason - even EX JW's don't seem to be able to grasp that distinction which makes such a difference. Conscientious Objectors did NOT face Vietnam. They only faced COMMUNITY SERVICE which JW boys were steered way from. -
NotFormer
What did the powers that be in the WT think they were achieving? They could have had their conscientious objectors employed and able to do field service. Instead, they gave them criminal records and thus reduced their ability to donate to "da whirled woid woik".
Those Newboy threads about Bethel life suggested that the situation was deliberately created to establish a pool of desperate young men who would willingly serve at Bethel under any conditions. That Bethel's heyday coincides with that era is probably not really that much of a coincidence after all.
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Terry
NotFormer17 minutes ago
What did the powers that be in the WT think they were achieving? They could have had their conscientious objectors employed and able to do field service. Instead, they gave them criminal records and thus reduced their ability to donate to "da whirled woid woik".
Those Newboy threads about Bethel life suggested that the situation was deliberately created to establish a pool of desperate young men who would willingly serve at Bethel under any conditions.
