I am applying for a discharge out of the United States Army.  The application asks 6 questions, concerning the make-up of one's acquired beliefs.  I will be posting them in portions.

First of all, army regulations define conscientious objection:

• Members of the military who develop a "firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms,"1 based on moral, ethical, or religious beliefs, are entitled to discharge from the military or transfer to non-combatant status. A conscientious objector must meet three criteria:
• you must object to participation in war in any form;
• you must base your objection on "religious training and belief" (which can include moral or ethical training and belief) that "crystallized" after you entered the military; and
• you must demonstrate that your position is "sincere and deeply held."

Here's the 1st of those 6 questions...

 A description of the nature of the belief that requires the person to seek separation from the military service or assignment to noncombatant training and duty for reasons of conscience.

 

My soul belongs to Jesus Christ, and the proclamation of His Gospel, in word and deed.  That Gospel, for which I invest my entire life, is one of God's unconditional Grace, for the souls of all people.  To kill someone is to quite possibly rob him or her of the Gospel, as the deed of violence will cut short future opportunities to experience and embrace It, should it not yet be, besides possibly compromising the victim's immediate and final (and thus critical) perception of Its availability.  Thus, fatal acts are often dominations of God's own mercy and the eternal soul of another.  Appropriately, then, I take the act of killing intensely serious; the decision to kill, even for the most objectively merciful reasons, may seal a fellow human-being into misery for the rest of Eternity, besides setting oneself before the wrath of that human's Creator.  In any situation where this is in any way avoidable, I cannot tolerate it.

Having established the seriousness with which I approach the act of killing, I can no longer participate in the military, or war, in any form, because they require killing on demand.  This is problematic to the point of being irresolvable, because a military command, or a pressure of war, to kill is, by no means, necessarily possessing the extreme moral justification that I absolutely require.  Thus, it is ethically irresponsible for me to further allow myself to stay under the command of any military, or within the participation of any war, in any form.

Yours,
Jake