Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience

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Vietnam War

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Despite all that has been written about Vietnam, the story of the 1-A-O conscientious objector, who agreed to put on a uni-form and serve in the field without weapons rather than accept alternative service outside the military, has received scarce atten-tion. This joint memoir by two 1-A-O combat medics, James C. Kearney and William H. Clamurro, represents a unique approach to the subject. It is a blend of their personal narratives—with select Vietnam poems by Clamurro—to illustrate noncombatant objection as a unique and relatively unknown form of Vietnam War protest.
Both men initially met during training and then served as frontline medics in separate units “outside the wire” in Vietnam. Clamurro was assigned to a tank company in Tay Ninh province next to the Cambodian border, before reassignment to an aid station with the 1st Air Cavalry. Kearney served first as a medic with an artillery battery in the 1st Infantry Division, then as a convoy medic during the Cambodian invasion with the 25th Infantry Division, and finally as a Medevac medic with the 1st Air Cavalry. In this capacity Kearney was seriously wounded during a “hot hoist” in February 1971 and ended up being treated by his friend Clamurro back at base.
Because of their status as “a new breed of conscientious objector”—i.e., more political than religious in their convictions—the authors’ experience of the Vietnam War differed fundamentally from that of their fellow draftees and contrasted even with the great majority of their fellow 1-A-O medics, whose conscientious objector status was largely or entirely faith-based.

North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series

About the Author

JAMES C. KEARNEY received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, where he now teaches. Kearney is the author of Nassau Plantation and No Hope for Heaven, No Fear of Hell (both UNT Press). WILLIAM H. CLAMURRO is professor emeritus of Spanish at Emporia State University in Kansas. He is the author of The Vietnam Typescript, a book of poetry.

Reviews

“Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience will make a significant contribution to the literature in the field for several reasons. There are few memoirs by legal Vietnam War noncombatant conscientious objectors, and Kearney and Clamurro’s accounts of their experiences as medics will provide invaluable source material for future historians writing on this subject. Their keen attention to historical details of time, place, and action, interwoven with personal recollections, impressions, and sentiments, provide readers new perspectives on reconciling the duty to serve one’s country with the duty to serve one’s conscience.”—Jean Mansavage, historian with the US Air Force

“The great strength of this book is Kearney’s compelling story, Clamurro’s vignettes and poems about his service in Vietnam, and their enduring friendship nurtured in the Texas heat of basic training. It’s a ‘buddy’ story with conscience at its center.”—Gary Kulik, former conscientious-objector medic in Vietnam and author of War Stories: False Atrocity Tales, Swift Boaters, and Winter Soldiers—What Really Happened in Vietnam

“This is no simple military memoir. Written from the unique vantage point of serving as 1-A-0 medics, Kearney and Clamurro deftly weave an ethical challenge into their writing, asking the reader to step into the position of dutifully serving their country in wartime while preserving their commitment to do no harm. The authors provide an unfiltered look into the paradoxes, absurdities, banalities, tragedies, and mundane daily activities related to the American military action in Vietnam, always prompting us to consider how far our consciences would allow us to go. And, more trenchantly, asking us what we would sacrifice to maintain our integrity to two competing values.”—Mark R. Teasdale, E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

"Their stories offer a fresh perspective on the war and the turbulent times surrounding it. Unequivocally, Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience is a new and significant contribution to the literature on the war in Vietnam."--ARGunners Magazine

"It was a time of enormous division in the U.S. For many who supported the Vietnam War. Protesters and conscientious objectors were often viewed as unpatriotic – unwilling to serve their country. But that dividing line wasn’t quite as clear as has been depicted through the years. It was conscientious objectors who straddled that line. Compelled by conscience to oppose the war, many nonetheless agreed to put on the uniform and serve in the field – without weapons and in protest. Such stories are seldom told, which is one reason the new book Duty to Serve, Duty To Conscience is such a compelling and important read."--Texas Standard

"Kearney and Clamurro opposed the Vietnam War not for religious reasons, but for personal, ethical, and informed political and historical awareness. They, and hundreds like them, were classified 1-A-O, which meant that they went to war as combat medics but did not receive weapons training and did not carry a weapon at any time. . . . America will sorely miss the citizen-soldier who is willing to serve but not to kill, and who has the courage to take part in a war and to critique it. This book is fodder for thought."--The VVA Veteran

"Kearney and Clamurro, from their cat-bird's seats as noncombatant 1-A-O medics in a combat zone, reveal levels of originality and authenticity that standard-fare guts-and-glory veteran memoirs leave wanting. . . . Readable and engaging, Duty to Serve, Duty to Conscience deserves a place on course syllabi for Vietnam War and post-war cultural studies."--Peace & Change

Published by University of North Texas Press