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I just finished Carol Reardon’s “Launch The Intruders,” a history of VA-75’s 1972 deployment to the Vietnam War.

During the course of the cruise, two or three crewmen turned in their wings. Here’s the thing.  Flight duty is strictly voluntary. No one can make you climb into the plane. You can turn in your wings, and that’s that. When the crewman turned in their wings, the squadron would strive to get them off the boat as quickly as possible, and sent back home. 

What’s interesting is why the pilots turned in their wings.  One guy, while scared, admitted that dying would be bad, but worse would be killing his bombadier navigator sitting next to him. The B/N is just along for the ride, so to speak, as he doesn’t have any flight controls.

Reaction from the rest of the squadron was interesting. As long as the guy turning in his wings wasn’t displaying abject cowardice, they tended to be fairly understanding, and didn’t utterly shun them.

In the Infantry, a guy that didn’t pull his weight was shunned. Hard. Falling out on a road march absent severe symptoms of heat exhaustion, whining about your load, not wanting to take your turn at the hard tasks… those things will cost you a great deal. And the Infantry is a very social organization. Losing your standing there will make your life miserable.

In early 1991, your humble scribe was deployed in a mechanized Infantry company with the 1st Armored Division as a part of Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Sometime after the air war started,  but before the ground offensive began, one of our troops suddenly decided he was a conscientious objector, and could not find it in himself to fight. There were a handful of incidents similar to this in units stateside facing deployment. And in our ranks, they were met with universal scorn. How contemptible to back out of an obligation freely assumed.

But in the case of our sudden conscientious objector, things were a little different. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to avoid the battle. He just didn’t want to shoot at anyone.

Rather than involve the massive bureaucracy of the Army, involving written statements, interviews, the Judge Advocate General, and who knows what else, the company commander simply said, “Fine.”  Our man handed his weapon over to the supply sergeant, and spent the rest of the deployment riding in the CO’s Humvee, a vehicle who’s armor consisted of canvas doors. He never once tried to get out of a work detail, or secure a position of greater safety or comfort.

I was at first annoyed with the man. But eventually, while I never fully understood his motives, decided I could not shun him.

No real point to this. Just thought I’d share.