Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience: The Story of Two Conscientious Objector Combat Medics During the Vietnam War by James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro. University of North Texas Press, 2023, 237 pp.
In Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience, authors James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro describe their experiences as 1-A-O conscientious objectors and combat medics in the Vietnam War. Clamurro explains that as a 1-A-O he was an Army soldier “with a particular and complicated status.” Primarily he served as a medic, but in legal terms he was a restricted noncombatant medic. He writes, “Finding myself in this identity, I was in more ways than one an observer, a man most of whose duties came after the fact [of combat], to aid and minister to others” (130).
Kearney and Clamurro, now university professors in history and literature, respectively, relate their untold personal ethical journeys, which were informed by the political and historical awareness of the turbulent Vietnam War years. Rather than being rooted in religious conviction, their conscientious objection was based in the western Humanist tradition and in Enlightenment thought. Both men embodied duty to conscience and duty to serve while simultaneously sharing the conviction of patriotism to country. They both served in infantry units, and Kearney earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star for Valor, Air Medal with V, and Purple Heart.
The book is divided into 11 chapters—eight written by Kearney and three by Clamurro—with a shared final reflection. Clamurro has 14 poems published throughout the book that offer his personal insight on the Vietnam experience. His poetry functions similarly as wartime ballads, conveying the emotional intensity, sorrow, and anguish of his experiences, augmenting Kearney’s historical narrative in the larger story—much like how World War I veterans J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis used poetry in their written works.
In chapter 1, Kearney covers his time in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Texas A&M to his transfer to the University of Texas, where he experienced firsthand the infamous 1966 tower shooting on campus. It was during these seminal college years that he was introduced to the nationalist thinking of Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and mathematician who spent the last years of his life actively protesting against the Vietnam War. Two books on the war also shaped Kearney’s thinking on America’s engagement in Vietnam: Edwin Reischauer’s Beyond Vietnam: The United States and Asia (Knopf, 1967) and J. William Fulbright’s The Arrogance of Power (Random House, 1966). In 1969 the draft board questioned his anti-war sentiments yet still allowed him the 1-A-O classification, concluding that he was not trying to avoid military service nor wanting to escape combat duty.
Chapters 2 and 3 describe Kearney’s medical training at Fort Sam Houston, where he met others in his class who were 1-A-Os for political rather than religious reasons, including Clamurro. Throughout his recollections, the humanity of his classmates stands out. This comes through in Clamurro’s poetry, which is introduced for the first time here.
These two chapters focus on the medics’ lack of medical training and preparation, a theme which takes on significance later when the authors detail their experiences in the field with no doctors present. Kearney acknowledges the bitterness they both felt over their training gap, given that they were thrust into life-and-death situations unprepared for what they would face. His assertion is immediately followed by Clamurro’s poem, “Casualties,” in which a medic dutifully yet futilely tends to a wounded Soldier, performing chest compressions “to restore the life motions of a heart that insisted on staying dead” (63–64).
Clamurro wrote chapters 4 and 7, which book end the narrative experience of the war medics. Noteworthy are the words “absurd” and “absurdities,” which are used no less than 10 times to describe the authors’ war experience, most significantly in Cu Chi and Cambodia. Clamurro and Kearney describe their emotional insights into death, various descriptions of medical situations they faced, and how the 1-A-Os’ convictions were tested because they did not carry weapons into battle to tend to the sick and dying.
In chapter 7 Kearney relates how he was interrogated about anti-war graffiti on base, which he suspects stemmed from his 1-A-O classification. He was personally against graffiti and even more so dedicated to upholding his commitment to service. These chapters also present the tension the medics faced to treat sick and wounded combatants: “The imperative was to wait, to just endure” until the aftermath of combat, death, and bloodshed (131). Their non-arms bearing status frustrated their fellow Soldiers and complicated decisions for leaders who did not understand their combat role, let alone their conscientious objection decision. Though the medics disagreed with the war, they understood their role as healers.
Kearney concludes the wartime stories in chapters 8 and 9, beginning with his dangerous 1970 volunteer medevac experience and then a daring 1971 chopper rescue mission where he was shot. It was then that the men who had first served together two years prior were reunited. When he returned from the mission, it was Clamurro who rendered first aid.
At the end of chapter 9, Clamurro’s poem on the end-of-duty tour contains a line which aptly captures their experiences as noncombatants: “The bullet also tore a consciousness” (180). Though they did not take up arms in combat, they were nevertheless morally wounded by their experience. Kearney’s and Clamurro’s actions as 1-A-O medics highlight their bravery and heroism for their country. The men knew the risk they took entering war unarmed, and despite this, they chose to serve for a war they objected to.
As Kearney reveals in chapter 10, after returning from war, the men reentered the university to further their education. Eventually, Kearney was encouraged by friends and colleagues to publish their story. Realizing the voices of many thousands of 1-A-Os remained unheard, he and Clamurro collaborated together to compile their personal narratives, writings on interviews and reunions, and research, including an official military publication on legal conscientious objection during the Vietnam War.
In chapter 11, Clamurro concludes the book with a critique of the Vietnam War. He writes that Kearney’s and his service “embodied a moral critique of war” through their noncombative status (202). In doing so, he raises questions about the moral implications of war itself. Though the 1-A-O classification through voluntary service is still in effect, conscription is not. Yet in describing their experiences with involuntary service, Kearny and Clamurro challenge readers to consider that “many people do not perceive that they have any real obligation to define themselves on certain moral questions, specifically the willingness to engage in combat violence” (202). The authors compel service members and military leaders to consider the questions, Am I morally ready and willing to kill in war? Have I thought through the moral justifications to take a life in combat?
While their dual memoir represents an unprecedented look into a largely forgotten and often misunderstood category of conscientious objectors during the war, the authors ultimately suggest that service members have a moral duty to justify their use or nonuse of force and to understand the moral implications of their service.
Captain, Chaplain Adam B. Embry, USAF