A Young Man Pays for His Beliefs

U.S. Army seargent Ricky Clousing is heading to jail. In fact, jail was the only place where the 24-year old's principles and faith could lead him.

A Born-Again from Sumner, Washington, Clousing enlisted in the U.S. army believing he could serve both his God and his country. He was trained in intelligence and sent to Iraq to interrogate prisoners. His work brought him to the conclusion that the occupation was creating a cycle of anti-American sentiment and violence.

Clousing was shocked at what he saw in Iraq, particularly one incident in which his fellow soldiers gunned down an unarmed Iraqi teenager. He lodged a complaint but the army cleared the soldiers, claiming that the teen was close enough that he could have been taken for a threat. Crime: not keeping your distance. Punishment: summary execution.

From the New York Times:

"Sergeant Clousing said he looked into the eyes of the Iraqi teenager as he died and saw the unjustifiable loss of a life that unhinged him. He wrote in his journal, 'I want to be a boy again, free of this.'”

The path that Clousing took is fascinating. He had so many easy outs laid at his feet. He just couldn't take them:

"Back in Fort Bragg after five months in Iraq, Sergeant Clousing took his misgivings to his superiors. They sent him to a chaplain, who showed him in the Bible where God sent his people to war, the sergeant said. Then they sent him to a psychologist who said he could get out of the military by claiming he was crazy or gay. Sergeant Clousing said he had not been looking for a way out and found the suggestion offensive.

"He called a hotline for members of the military run by a coalition of antiwar groups. The man who took the call was Chuck Fager, who runs Quaker House, a longtime pacifist stronghold in Fayetteville.

“'This call was unusual,' Mr. Fager said in an interview. He said hotline receptionists took more than 7,000 calls from or about military members last year.

“'I don’t have these kinds of probing discussions about moral and religious issues very often,' he said. 'I said to him, you’re not crazy or a heretic for having difficulty reconciling Jesus’ teachings with what’s going on in Iraq.'”

"Sergeant Clousing said he could not file for conscientious objector status because he could not honestly say he was opposed to all war. After several months of soul-searching, he went AWOL."

An intruiging point is how Clousing's friends from the Born-Again community reacted:

"He tried to talk with his church friends in Washington. Some understood him, but others said he had to support the government because of a biblical injunction to 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.'

“'They felt that God established government and we’re supposed to be submitting to authorities, and by me leaving it’s rebelling against the authority that God established,' Sergeant Clousing said. 'Their politics has infiltrated their religion so much, they can’t see past their politics.'”

God established government? Opposing your government is rebelling against the authority that God established? Now, I was born right the first time so I can't pretend to have any inside knowledge of the Born-Agains but, given the integrity he's shown throughout, I have trouble believing Clousing would be making this up.

God established government. Government isan instrument God's authority. The President himself believes he is an instrument of God. Disobedience therefore is mortal sin. Does this sound like brainwashing to anyone or is it just me? I thought the Japanese in WWII had taken leave of their senses in believing their emperor to be divine. These people seem to think their entire goverment is divine. Kinda makes the skin crawl.

Sergeant Clousing is off to jail. A plea-bargain kept his time down to three months. After that he'll undoubtedly receive a dishonourable discharge, an ironic outcome for a young man who struggled so hard to do the honourable thing.