The C.O.'s Private Battle

It used to be that General Vo Nguyen Giap's guerrilla manual was the main source of the U.S. military's woes in Viet Nam. Now the brass is worrying about the U.S. Army Regulations as well. With the help of U.S. civilian lawyers, a few G.I.s in Viet Nam have seized on a little-known passage in the "Army regs" section on conscientious objectors and tried to use it as a legal way out of combat.

The point man in the legal skirmishing is Private Adolph R. Flores, 21, of Houston, who was already an opponent of the Army last summer when he arrived in South Viet Nam. Before going overseas, he consulted a group of antiwar lawyers. Poring over Army Regulation 635-20, they found that citizens who do not apply for C.O. status before induction can claim that status later on. That right is granted in a clause stating that C.O. claims "growing out of experience prior to entering military service but which did not become fixed until entry into the service will be considered."

Last June the Supreme Court ruled that deeply held moral or ethical convictions as well as religious beliefs could be grounds for exemption from combat. Since then, applications for C.O. status on moral and ethical grounds have increased. Most C.O.s claim their exemptions before induction.* But C.O. applications from men in uniform are inching up, too: in the first nine months of the year, 820 G.I.s applied (v. 943 for all of 1969) and 235 have won C.O. exemptions (v. 194 last year). Still, only 36 of this year's applications for C.O. status have come from G.I.s in Viet Nam, and as of last August, only twelve of them had been approved.

A Change of Mind. Flores, assigned to the crack 101st Airborne Division last month, lost no time in applying for C.O. status. His superiors shifted Flores out of combat and eventually to the 101st's Camp Eagle headquarters, pending Washington's action on his application. Before long more than a dozen other G.I.s from Flores' battalion and other units arrived at Camp Eagle, all demanding C.O. treatment.

The Army soon changed its mind, too. According to the regulations. G.I.s who apply for C.O. status must be assigned duties that provide the "minimum practicable conflict with their asserted beliefs" until Washington rules on the case. The Army argued that such "minimum duties" do not require shifting a soldier out of combat zones, but that he can be given noncombat assignments in fighting areas. Accordingly, Flores and the others were ordered back to the field, where they "could be used to carry rope, extra water, whatever the company needed." In the end, Flores and two other G.I. privates, Frederick H. Miller and Frank Moore, both 23, were returned to their units but refused to take up the duties assigned. They were confined in the stockade at Camp Eagle to await courts-martial on charges of failure to obey orders. The Army's apparent intention was to discourage other G.I.s from getting out of combat areas in the same fashion.

Last week, Flores & Co. won their private Viet Nam War after all. To their aid came Henry Aronson of the Lawyers Military Defense Committee, set up three months ago by a group of U.S. lawyers and law professors (TIME. Oct. 19). Aronson's strongest argument was that the publicity surrounding the courts-martial would only encourage widespread abuse of the C.O. regulation. Hours before the proceedings were to begin at Danang last week, the Army dropped the charges.

Back to the Boonies. Actually, the Army insists that it had every legal right to order the men back to their units. It maintains that neither Miller nor Moore ever bothered to go through with the complex application procedures and that neither could be legally exempted from bearing arms.

At week's end, all three seemed headed back to the field. Miller and Moore were transferred to other 101st Division companies. As for Flores, Washington approved his C.O. request as a 1-A-O while he was in the Camp Eagle stockade. Henceforth, he may not have to fire a weapon, but he can be ordered out into the boonies to carry radios, drive supply vehicles or help with the wounded.

* Would-be C.O.s can request their draft boards to classify then as I-0 (which exempts them from military duty but requires them to serve in mental hospitals, in VISTA or in some other service programs), or as 1-A-0's (they don uniforms but do not bear arms. This year the Army has trained as many as 3,000 1-A-0's, mostly as medics.

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