opinion

Column: How can Sanders be commander in chief?

I enlisted in the military while I was still in high school. Around that time Bernie Sanders' draft board was deciding on his claim that he refused to do military service because he was a conscientious objector. He did so to avoid having to serve his country in the Vietnam War. Soon after he turned 26, too old to be drafted, and no longer needed ways to avoid the draft. Sanders was just settling down in his new home in Vermont in 1970-1971 while I served my country as a military policeman in jeep patrols in Vietnam.

His decision to refuse to fulfill his wartime civic and patriotic duties claiming conscientious objection follows him his entire life.

According to the Selective Service, a conscientious objector is: "Someone who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles." Originally only members of specific religious groups with pacifist beliefs, like Quakers and Mennonites, would qualify as conscientious objectors, but in 1971, a U.S. Supreme Court decision broadened its definition to include anyone who "has deeply held beliefs that cause them to oppose participation in war in any form." This definition was fashioned to prevent claims of conscientious objectors who protested fighting in a specific war, such as the Vietnam War.

My question as a Vietnam veteran is: How on earth could a person claiming to be a conscientious objector become the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world?

How could a conscientious objector decide whether to deploy troops or give orders to drop bombs in support of a crisis? How can a conscientious objector knowingly send troops where people will be injured or killed? How could he order his fellow Americans to go to war when he refused to go to war himself?

When given the chance to serve his country, Bernie Sanders refused to do so and claimed he was opposed to what military service stood for. How can he now ask us to let him command that same military? If Sanders believes he can, does he deny being a conscientious objector now, or was he untruthful when he was facing the possibility of serving his country? Americans, especially veterans, deserve to know the answers to these questions.

STEVE WIKERT of Cedar Falls is a Vietnam veteran and retired teacher.