Disquiet Grows in U.S. Military, Fueled by War on Iran

The Center on Conscience and War, which helps run a 24-hour GI Rights Hotline, is set up to inform members of the U.S. armed forces about their options for military discharge. The group has recently experienced a spike in calls by active-duty servicemen and women asking how they can become conscientious objectors. In this article, Bill Galvin, the center’s counseling director, told National Public Radio in early April that nearly all the callers he talks to mention the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran on February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war, which killed at least 165 civilians, most of them children. A preliminary assessment determined the U.S. military was at fault. 

“Since Trump began his second term, his administration’s legally questionable use of the armed forces — from his deployment of the National Guard to several cities led by Democrats to U.S. strikes on Venezuelan boats — has left a growing number in the military unsettled and demoralized,” the NPR article reports. 

     Bill Galvin has spent much of the past month answering the phone.

“It’s been very, very busy,” he says. Galvin is the counseling director at the Center on Conscience and War, which helps run the 24-hour GI Rights Hotline, set up to inform service members of their options for military discharge.

Most callers are asking how to apply to become a conscientious objector — a difficult, invasive and rarely used process. But they’re also airing their concerns and frustrations, often anonymously, as the hotline allows them a space to do so without repercussions.

Read more at: https://tinyurl.com/disquiet-grows-in-u-s-military

Details: https://centeronconscience.org