>You bring up a good question though. While I agree with what you wrote as far as not enlisting to begin with if you consider the war itself wrong, what about those folks who are already in the military? In your opinion, is it ok to refuse to participate in a war they don't agree with? In order to do that, the oath and contract would have to be changed.

Great question. I guess it depends what "don't agree with" means. AIUI, soldiers have a responsibility to disobey orders that are illegal, so if for example, you (the generic "you") think that you're being sent to fight against the law, you'd be obliged not to go. Of course, that's a pretty rare case.

Clearly, once you enlist, you do give up some basic civil rights. So it's not good enough to say "Gee, I never thought we'd have a war against so-and-so, and I can't fight them."

I think there could be a fairly large gray area in the middle.

Tamar