Belarusian conscientious objector jailed ethiopianreview.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Woodworking: What happened to the idea of making original movies? riverfallsjournal.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
War movies, from 'Western Front' to 'Private Ryan' USA Today Take a look at an interesting article we found.
February 09, 2010
It was just a movie.
The camera rolled.
Men shot at each with blanks, but for one young actor, it was real enough:
"We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty. If a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall."
Erich Maria Remarque's words.
The movie was “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
The young actor it affected was Lew Ayres who portrayed Paul Bäumer, a disillusioned German soldier in World War I.
He went on to play opposite Lionel Barrymore as “Dr. Kildare.” Brother Ned to Katherine Hepburn in “Holiday” and practically stole the show.
But it was his next role that turned heads all over America.
Only he wasn't acting.
World War II.
Emotions were running high. These were real bullets.
Lew Ayres declared himself a pacifist, which was about the most unpopular stance you could take.
Only slightly below a serial killer.
He said he would go only if he became a member of the Medical Corps.
The military would not guarantee him that position so he declared himself a conscientious objector.
The outcry was enormous, his films boycotted. Louis B. Mayer declared, "You're through in Hollywood," and his wife Ginger Rogers filed for divorce.
During the American Revolution, conscientious objectors were widely regarded as cowards.
In the original 1789 draft of the Bill of Rights, author James Madison proposed that the Second Amendment both protect the right to bear arms and establish that "no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."
That clause was struck in the approved version.
Lew Ayres, part two:
The military finally relented and allowed him to be able to join the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
This, in turn, changed the policy for other CO's, who would be guaranteed service in the Medical Corps as noncombatants.
Ayres served three and a half years as a medic and chaplain's aide in the South Pacific, earning three silver stars.
Hollywood loves a hero, and he was one.
Twenty-five thousand World War II CO's served as non-combatant medical corpsmen and chaplains in the armed forces and went into battle unarmed.
The draft law written by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 was Article 18—"The Right to Refuse to Kill."
Now, if everyone in the world had signed up for it, that would have been something.
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HOLLYWOOD & THE STARS WHO SERVED IN WORLD WAR II angelfire.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
A Closer Look: Conscientious Objection pbs.org Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Lew Ayres Bio tcm.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
still thinking about today...
morning all!
i haven't had my coffee yet...but.....isn't military service, in any branch of the united states by choice now........is it so elsewhere?