Politics & Policy

When a Soldier Said No to War

Last December, Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes was assigned to the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, Calif. On Dec. 6, the 23-year-old reported to the ship wearing a T-shirt that said, “Like a cabinet member, I resign.”

Now Pablo is in the Navy’s custody. With help from the San Diego Military Counseling Project, he has submitted an application for discharge based on conscientious objection. He is currently awaiting a decision from the Navy, which can choose to discharge him dishonorably, sentence him to time in jail or court-martial him.

According to the Pentagon, approximately 5,500 enlisted soldiers had deserted since the start of the Iraq war, as reported by CBS News at the beginning of December 2004.

The USS Bonhomme Richard was scheduled to ferry 3,000 Marines to the Persian Gulf. “It brought my brother to a crossroads,” said Victor Paredes, Pablo’s older brother, at a March 1 event at New York University titled “When Soldiers Say No to War." “He said, well, at one end, I’ve only got about another five or six months [more to serve], and then I’m done. I’ll get out of here,” Victor said. “But then on the other side … you say, well, I’m going to take 3,000 folks out there, maybe a couple hundred are not going to come back. How do I feel about it?”

“He understands that he has disobeyed certain laws and regulations in the military. And he will abide by whatever that entails,” Victor said.

Pablo was recruited into the Navy almost five years ago. In an interview with Socialist Worker in February 2005, Pablo explained how he had to drop out of college because his scholarship could not cover an increase in the tuition. “It was at this point that I remember getting constantly hounded by military recruiters, who promised that I could get money for college and pursue my education later," said Pablo. "I was happy-go-lucky and ignorant of the policies of this country and thinking only about educational opportunities.”

Pablo served in Japan for close to three years. “Ironically, it was the military providing that experience to him that would allow him to come to terms with his thought processes, his feelings, his emotions and his version of spirituality,” said Victor.

Pablo’s time in Japan, including his observations of the country’s low crime rate, and his Catholic upbringing in a tough neighborhood in the Bronx led him to believe that he never wanted to be involved in “the business of waging war,” as Victor put it. After serving in Japan, Pablo deliberately sought positions that he thought to be nonviolent, such as serving as a military police officer on a base to working on ships’ defense systems.

Although Victor and Pablo are mainly focused on Pablo’s legal troubles right now, they hope to provoke thought, especially among youth. “The biggest problem we have is that there is large indifference in the population. … It’s interesting how we try to supposedly bestow and enlighten the world about the joys of freedom and democracy, but our citizens don’t practice the most basic right that a citizen has, which is to vote,” Victor said.

He believes that if a greater percentage of the population voted, the government would be more responsive to the demands of its citizens. “It is up to civil society to ensure that … that force to defend, acts in defense of what we believe in according to what we need and what we want,” Victor continued.

Victor also brought up issues with the military, including the success of military recruitment — with its offers of money and travel — among young minorities. “Young men have to be informed a lot better about what they’re about to get themselves into,” Victor said. He suggested the creation of a scholarship fund to help young minorities. “If we can get three of them, or two of them, to actually go to school, I think that would be far more successful than trying to tell 1,000 not to join the military,” he said.

On the Citizens for Pablo Web site, at www.swiftsmartveterans.com, Pablo says in a recorded message, “What I wanted to do was make an impact, was let people listen to a voice from inside that’s willing to say, this is criminal, this is injustice. … Hopefully, this can echo the fight that military members and civilians started in Vietnam when they found the same injustices happening in their country.”