My Vietnam-era experience overlapped my spiritual journey. Two moments foreshadowed the paths I would take.
The first moment occurred one late afternoon of my freshman year at The Venard, 1960-61. I sat in a rear pew of the chapel having just finished a book, and I searched the book ledge for something new. Lives of saints? Thomas Merton? Oh, here was a work offering scientific explanations for biblical miracles. Opening it, I read that manna - God's miracle food that sustained ancient Jews in the Sinai - was actually a nutritious substance that occurred naturally in deserts.
Surprising to me, such a mundane explanation for a miracle. What others of God's phenomena might be naturally explained? I promptly dismissed the question as sinful. But it nagged me.
I had delayed the requisite meeting with Father Thomas Kiernan, the default spiritual advisor for freshmen. When we eventually met, I hoped not to discuss anything substantive.
"You're doing well," Father Kiernan said matter-of-factly as he scanned my file. He commented on my grades. "I see you have 'A' in deportment. Very few boys have that. It's something to be proud of."
Then he wanted to know: "How are you getting along?" I mentioned several friends and told him that I had enjoyed Venard life ever since surviving a homesick September three quarters earlier. I told him I had become acquainted with a number of upper classmen, whom I considered to be bright, upright, and even kind.
I neglected to mention a sophomore who one day punched me in the forehead, knocking me backward as I sat at my desk. Nor did I reference a table mate who once held a scalding teapot against my hand during grace. Stubbornly I refused to flinch or show any reaction in a test of wills that left a blister the size of a tablespoon. "Amen," we said in unison. He smiled wryly.
Father Kiernan cautioned against "particular friendships," a phrase I seemed to understand without fully comprehending it. Then, drawing our meeting to a close, he asked if I had any questions. "Father," I ventured shyly. "I have doubts." Surprising myself, I had blurted out that much of my inner life.
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Perfectly natural," Father said offhandedly. "Doubts are to be expected. Keep doing what you're doing. We'll let you know if you're not cut out for this." He seemed to think my doubts were about the priesthood and not about faith itself.
But it wasn't doubts that caused my departure from the Venard. After that freshman year, I flirted with a neighbor's cousin during summer vacation. Girls had become -- well, interesting! My fledgling questions about faith were dwarfed by the pull of sexuality. No way, I decided, was I going to commit to a celibate life. Two weeks before September classes, I enrolled in the local Catholic high school.
A second portentous moment occurred in my freshman year at St. Bonaventure University, where participation in the Reserve Officer Training Corps was mandatory for underclassmen. I sat in the ROTC orientation class as a sergeant enrolled new cadets in the by-the-numbers patois of the military.
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Gentlemen, you will note that one question asks if you are a conscientious objector. The answer to that question is 'yes' or 'no.' You will answer 'no' to that question unless you do not defend yourself - unless you are not even tempted to defend yourself - when I walk over and punch you in the face."
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That's not right," I whispered to the fellow next to me. He shrugged. I checked "no."
I was not a conscientious objector - yet.
I was, in fact, a youthful, conservative ideologue, the sole member in the Young Americans for Freedom in my hometown. I sent submissions to William F. Buckley's National Review magazine, which had printed one of them. I collected autographs from political figures, such as Barry Goldwater. In November 1964, on the day Lyndon Johnson overwhelmed Goldwater in the presidential election, I tore up my autographed photo of Johnson.
My parents were members of the John Birch Society, a right-wing citizens' lobby that was a forerunner of today's extremist organizations. The founder of the Society, Robert Welch, had notoriously claimed that President Eisenhower was part of a domestic Communist conspiracy.
Despite my politics, which were wholly inherited from my parents, I knew the ROTC sergeant's glib threat was wrong when he talked about conscientious objection.
During a two-semester stint as a cadet, I learned to fire a 105-mm howitzer that weighed 5,000 pounds. It could send shells seven miles distant. I studied azimuths and learned that each successive shell travels a bit farther as the barrel heats from repeated firing. You would need to adjust for this creeping fire unless you wanted shells to chase a retreating enemy or to march ahead of advancing troops.
On the range we practiced with M-1 rifles modified to fire 22-caliber bullets. We learned to disassemble and clean the M-1 with eyes closed. We learned to avoid "M-1 thumb." We practiced formations and drilled on the parade ground.
The crew-cut captain who commanded the ROTC program had just returned from Vietnam, where fighting at the time seemed only a bit more than a tribal skirmish. The captain was rumored to have seen arrows embedded in the hulls of helicopters returning from the field. A few thousand US soldiers were in-country as advisors, not combatants, or so we were told.
Undergrads at St. Bonaventure who decided to continue with ROTC beyond their sophomore year would actually join the Army, get paid a monthly stipend, and use their summer vacations for basic training and officer training. They would graduate with commissions as second lieutenants, beginning their military service.
A second lieutenant in an artillery unit is a forward observer who takes positions ahead of the line and calls in rounds on the enemy's position. Forward observers were reputed to have very short life expectancies in combat.
Mother's Day was Sunday May 9, 1965, part of parents' weekend at St. Bonaventure. Groundskeepers had worked all week planting fresh flowers and sprucing up the campus, which looked lovely as parents turned out for Sunday Mass. After Mass, I saw an Army Jeep trailing a 105 howitzer beyond the flower beds. It struck me as incongruous and in poor taste.
My course of study at St. Bonaventure had recapitulated my high school studies, and I was bored. Also, I had a new girlfriend at home. So, I decided to transfer to LeMoyne College for my sophomore year, closer to home. Signing my ROTC transcript, the captain teased me about having been "out of uniform" during a spring inspection, my hair too long after the winter months. "We've haven't always seen eye to eye, Cadet Quinn," he said agreeably, "but if you want to rejoin ROTC in the future, I'll give you a good recommendation."
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Thank you, sir."
I had no intention of seeing a ROTC classroom or parade ground again.
In the 1960s the law required me to carry my draft card. Fifty-seven years later, it is still in my wallet, that same card. I cannot exactly explain why, except to say that card is a potent memento of the time when I made up my mind about God and country.
During college years, my Selective Service status was 2-S, that is, "registrant deferred because of activity in study." Those years were a time I wrestled with the religious and philosophical questions that germinated at The Venard. I continued to attend Mass, I went to Confession, and I often walked about the campus saying the rosary, just as I had in the seminary, except silently and without a group of boys.
At LeMoyne I studied the German theologians, Schleiermacher, Schweitzer, Feuerbach, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer - all Lutherans. We considered "the quest for the historical Jesus" and "demythologizing the New Testament." Non-Catholics were free to discuss such things? How liberating. Eventually, I decided I was no longer a Roman Catholic. I committed myself to a philosophical Christianity, absent the supernatural. I committed myself to pacifism.
Before graduation in 1968, I applied to the Selective Service for a 1-O classification, that is, a "conscientious objector available for civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest." In doing so I consulted a handbook published by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, a Quaker organization in Philadelphia, PA.
The Selective Service at that time required a conscientious objector to demonstrate that he belonged to a religious organization having pacifism in its creed. That was a problem. Catholicism's creed did not include pacifism. And in any case, I had left Catholicism and was without a specific religious affiliation.
You were no longer eligible for an educational deferment if you were no longer in college. As a result, more than twenty thousand Americans decamped to Canada rather than face the US draft. If I did not succeed in securing a I-O classification, I was determined not to flee. I would accept a prison sentence.
I subscribed to the beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. They taught passive resistance to objectionable laws, but they also believed in respecting the law's authority. One must acknowledge the government's legitimacy in making and enforcing its laws. Therefore, if you choose to break a law, you should also accept the government's punishment. Furthermore, policemen and judges who enforced the law are entitled to respect. If I were to refuse induction into the Army, I must do so on principle while being respectful, not antagonistic, to representatives of the state.
In my application for the draft board, I had to explain how in three years I had gone from an ROTC cadet at a Catholic college to a pacifist having no religious affiliation. I emphasized my religious roots and my Catholic education, including that single year at The Venard. I wrote about my study of philosophy and theology with the Jesuits.
As I drafted my application, I traveled home one weekend to inform my parents. After attending Mass with them and after a big family breakfast, I collected myself. "Dad? Mom? There's something I want to talk about."
Their faces turned. "I have decided to apply to the draft board as a conscientious objector."
I held my breath, but there was no explosive pushback, just quiet and concerned questioning. When had I made this decision? Why? Would I become an Army medic? Was I planning to go to Canada? Did I know what I was doing? What did I expect to happen next?
I told my parents I was a Christian. I said Jesus taught pacifism. No, I wouldn't enter the military, not even as a medic. No, I wouldn't go to Canada. I expected to do alternate service, perhaps working in a hospital. And if I was denied the I-O classification? Then, I would take my medicine. If that meant going to jail, I would go to jail.
Hours later in the living room, I spied my father, alone, holding his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Dad," I said. "I am not doing this to hurt you." He nodded.
The following morning, he told me: "I disagree with what you're doing. But I respect your right to do it."
I solicited character references from two Jesuits at LeMoyne, Father Jim, a professor of religion, and Father Dan, college chaplain.
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I can testify to the sincerity of his claim," Father Jim wrote, explaining that my belief was "based on religious grounds." He added: "I do not agree with Mr. Quinn's extreme pacifism, nor do I believe that it is a correct interpretation of the Christian faith."
Father Dan's letter said: "As a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, it is my judgment that his belief is not contrary to our church's teaching, Of course, the Roman Catholic Church does not teach that one must be a 'Conscientious Objector.' This doctrine does make it possible, however, for someone, and I believe Mr. Quinn to be one of them, to be 'by reasons of a religious training or belief' a Roman Catholic and a 'Conscientious Objector.' As I have witnessed with others, however, it sometimes happens for a period of time to a young person that he thinks more seriously about the meaning of his belief and at the same time becomes less closely affiliated with formal worship . . . . I frankly believe that eventually he will come to unite both his personal belief and that of his church, and I do respect his present state."
Rereading these letters, I appreciate their careful formulations -- my belief was "based on religious grounds" and was the result of "religious training or belief." These priests worked hard to fit me into the Selective Service's I-O category.
It was a different story elsewhere. The monsignor at my family's parish declined to give me a letter. "You are in serious error," he said before he dismissed me. He pointedly told me not to expect any letters from the other parish priests either, priests I knew well, having served Mass for them scores of times. I also requested a reference from the father of a friend, known since elementary school. He turned on me angrily and ordered from his home.
There was a lot of anger over the Vietnam War. I was at the home of a girlfriend for a July fourth cookout. Her dad was an engineer at General Electric, as were several others at the cookout. They worked on large military contracts, including GE's secret work on sideways-looking radar. One of them casually asked if I would be heading into the military after graduation. I said I was seeking conscientious objector status. Did I realize I was aiding Communists? Did I support Hanoi? He scoffed at me. I was a traitor and a disgrace. I offered to explain my beliefs, referencing Jesus. Our voices became shrill. How defensive and sanctimonious I must have sounded.
I disliked the war protests, thought them ugly, but I participated anyway as a matter of conscience. I remember one demonstration that began at Syracuse University and proceeded north on Walnut Avenue. Fraternities lined both sides. Syracuse police were present, vaguely scary themselves. Music blasted from the frat houses as the brothers pitched half-empty beer cans in our direction. The protest included a noisy contingent waving Viet Cong flags. That's not right, I thought. That's not why I was there.
On the day of my hearing, I sat nervously at a table as members of the draft board came together. Leaning toward me, one said quietly, "Don't worry. We have sons too." I answered their questions for about 15 minutes. Within days the draft board sent notice of my new classification: 1-O.
A month or two afterwards, I reported for a physical exam at an Army site in Syracuse. The exam center was busy with guys in their underwear, each carrying his own records from station to station. My file was identified with a bright red 1-O in one-inch letters on each page. Hard to overlook by any officer or non-com glancing from the paperwork to my eyes. But every soldier was polite. No snide remarks, no snarls, no manhandling. I had worried about such things.
One officer pulled me aside. "We're taking you to a specialist," he said.
In answer to a question about hospitalizations, I had reported having had a spontaneous pneumothorax (lung collapse) two years earlier. A soldier drove me to a private medical office nearby. A doctor examined me, administered a spirometry test, and sat me down to explain I was fit for service. "Nothing disqualifies you from the Army," he said apologetically. "The chances of your having another pneumothorax are the same as that of the general population."
On October 7, 1968, the Selective Service wrote that I had been "found fully acceptable for induction into the Armed Forces," meaning alternate service in my case. Yet, mere weeks later the draft board changed my classification to I-YP. What had happened to the 1-O?
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The I-YP means you have a physical condition that defers you permanently," said a clerk over the phone. How could that be? A specialist told me I was not disqualified from service. And what about the draft board's October 7th notice? If I truly had a medical problem, wouldn't the appropriate classification be 4-F? There was no further explanation.
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What does this change mean?" I asked. The clerk said I was under no obligation to perform alternate service in place of a military obligation. I was free to live my life.
There had been many objections to military deferments, especially for men in college. Poorer guys didn't attend college in the same numbers as those of the middle-class, so they received far fewer educational deferments. The Vietnam war was fought disproportionately by sons of the under-privileged, and it wasn't fair. Which explains the draft lottery that the Selective Service began the year after my reclassification. Because a lottery was random, it was thought to be more equitable. The 1969 lottery was for draftees of 1970, and it applied to those born between 1944 and 1950, which would have included me.
The Selective Service drew lots for each birthday assigning a sequential number for each, from 1 to 366. Each guy was then subject to the draft according to his number. The first number selected was for those born on September 14. Of the 366 birthdays, men with numbers 1 through 195 were actually called to serve. My birthdate was 277.
Four years passed before I heard again from the draft board. It mailed me a new classification -- 4-F, meaning "physically disqualified" from military service. What? What prompted that change? Again, there was no explanation. I never contacted them. I had married by then. My wife was five months pregnant.
In the end, I was exempt from the draft and exempt from alternative service, as well. But the Vietnam War is still with me. The experience has influenced the jobs I sought (and declined), the places I worked, and the way I've lived my life.
Decades after these events, I happened to tune the radio to an "oldies" station while traveling one Saturday morning. Riding in silence, my wife and I were reminded of the emotions of those times. "I was so angry during those years," I said. "Angry about Vietnam. Angry about the Nixon gang. But hearing these songs again, all I remember now is being scared."
Tom Quinn