To Kill or Not To Kill–That Is the Question

SENIOR MEMBER: Are there any ques­tions as to the pro­ceed­ings of the board con­cern­ing the rights of the respondent?

MR. HART: No ques­tions, other than I under­stand that we have the right to ask cer­tain ques­tions of the mem­bers of the board to deter­mine whether they may or may not have a pre­de­ter­mined opin­ion about what should be done with the respon­dent in this case.

SENIOR MEMBER: Yes, that’s right. Do you wish to ques­tion any mem­bers of the board con­cern­ing their qualifications?

MR. HART: Yes, I would.

Ques­tions by Counsel:

Q. Mr. Fitzgib­bons, how long have you been in the Navy?

A. Eleven and a half years, sir.

Q. Have you ever served on an admin­is­tra­tive board before?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. Could you esti­mate how many?

A. Two.

Q. Have you ever served on a court-​​martial board?

A. Yes, I have.

Q. Would you esti­mate how many?

A. About twenty.

Q. Now have you ever had any occa­sion, in the course of your eleven and a half years of ser­vice, to have con­tact with any naval per­son­nel who opposed mil­i­tary service?

A. No, sir.

Q. Do you have any prior knowl­edge as to the reg­u­la­tions per­tain­ing to the pro­cess­ing of such an individual?

A. Noth­ing spe­cific, only the gen­eral back­ground which every naval offi­cer, you might say, should have.

Q. Could you describe briefly for me, what that back­ground is?

A. While I am aware that there are pro­ce­dures recently revised by the Depart­ment of Defense to afford any mem­ber of the naval ser­vice the right to refuse mil­i­tary ser­vice if he under­stands the true mean­ing of mil­i­tary ser­vice, and that there are cer­tain for­mal pro­ce­dures which should be fol­lowed in these cases, I am not famil­iar with the details.

Q. Now, Mr. Fitzgib­bons, do you have any per­sonal feel­ings about a man who would refuse to kill those he has been ordered to kill?

A. No, sir.

Q. If the evi­dence were to show that Drury has refused to take part in the killing of other human beings as a fact, which was his rea­son for hav­ing been involved in cer­tain mat­ters, you’d have no prior opin­ion of his refusal to kill on another’s com­mand?

A. No, sir. If I may point out, as far as any indi­vid­ual refus­ing to take part in the killing of other human beings, I stand firm in my own per­sonal opin­ion that every indi­vid­ual has the right to refuse. As far as a prior notion, I have no pre­con­ceived notion one way or the other.

Q. Now, do you know what ship Mr. Drury served on?

A. I’m aware he was trans­ferred to the Golds­bor­ough from the David­son, but know lit­tle else of his pre­vi­ous record or how long he had served on the Davidson.

Q. Do you know any­body on the Davidson?

A. Not personally—no, sir.

In like man­ner were the other mem­bers of the board grilled. Hav­ing nei­ther seen nor heard, nor spo­ken any­thing that might prej­u­dice them­selves against the Daniel who did so vocif­er­ously object to their way of life, did all but the last of these great tail­less apes step forth, unscathed, from the fiery fur­nace into which they had been cast by that Neb­uchad­nez­zar lawyer of mine to bridge the brook to their hearts. For it seemed that the last of this breed of war mon­ger­ing apes had actu­ally had con­tact with some­one on my old ship, the USS David­son. But he too failed to cough up any­thing more sig­nif­i­cant than this half-​​digested tid­bit as he fin­ished tes­ti­fy­ing in the same monkey-​​see, monkey-​​do fash­ion of those who had tes­ti­fied before him.

MR. HART: I have no fur­ther ques­tions; and I have no chal­lenges
for cause.