Vietnam’s Other Soldiers
Kevin Burton November/December 2025BOOK REVIEW Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War’s Forgotten Medics, by Gary Kulik (Texas Tech University Press, August 2025).
Gary Kulik has published the first history of conscientious objector (CO) medics in the Vietnam War. Kulik’s new book was published by Texas Tech University Press—the ideal press since Texas Tech is home to the notable Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive. Conscientious Objectors at War appears in the Peace and Conflict Series, edited by Ron Milan, which is a reputable series devoted primarily to studies on the Vietnam War. Kulik himself is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who served as a CO medic during the conflict. His personal experience, blended with his expertise as a historian of the Vietnam War, enriches his narrative and analysis.
Kulik completed his Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University and has had a distinguished career. From 1979 to 1994 Kulik served as a department head and assistant director at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History. During these years, from 1988 to 1994, he also edited the American Quarterly, the prestigious journal of the American Studies Association that is published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. In 1994 Kulik became the deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, the premier museum of American decorative arts located on the du Pont estate in Delaware. He retired from his post in 2005. Throughout his notable career Kulik has written extensively on early American industrial history and has published two books on Vietnam War history.
Conscientious Objectors at War is a study of people’s lives and social connections. The introduction to the book is followed by eight chapters and a short epilogue. Chapter 1 provides a sweeping history of noncombatant service in the American military, from the Revolutionary War to the Iraq War. The next seven chapters then focus on the lives and service of specific CO medics in the Vietnam War. Kulik also uses these chapters to make several theoretical or historiographical interventions to reevaluate the war, its meaning, and its legacy.
Rethinking Assumptions
Kulik’s primary thesis challenges the notion that war resisters are the true heroes of the Vietnam War. CO medics provide an important entering wedge into debates surrounding this conflict because they occupied a “gray zone”—their “moral dissent was not as absolute as for those who chose prison or alternative service.” Unlike war dodgers and resisters, CO medics went to war—and often served valiantly. Kulik argues that their service did not make them complicit in the larger evils of the war, and they were not naive victims who were duped into joining the Army.
Kulik defends the honor of CO medics in a nuanced and thoughtful manner. He argues that “the United States had every right and every duty to assist the South Vietnamese from a Communist takeover,” but also insists that America “had no business taking over the war [by] sending ground troops into Vietnam.” Politicians and generals did betray those who served in Vietnam and the war was a “futile failure,” and yet this did not turn those who served into “victims,” Kulik avers. Rather, CO medics “made hard moral choices—choosing to do justice in the face of a greater injustice.” His book is devoted to exploring this gray zone that forced thousands of Americans to confront challenging dilemmas regarding the intersections of church and state.
Kulik provides several astute critiques of dominant perceptions of war and insights regarding military service. His own service and training as a historian enrich his analysis, and though he occasionally appears in his own narrative, Kulik’s book is not autobiographical. One common misconception that he addresses is the notion that CO medics were noncombatants. The vast majority of these men were attached to infantry divisions, and many knew combat—they “knew what it meant to be under fire, knew what it meant to try to save a life, and even knew what it meant to be a combatant.”
Conscientious Objectors at War is based on numerous interviews as well as written sources. Though living memory provides a strong basis for Kulik’s text, he critically interrogates the reliability of human memory as a source of knowledge—especially when it intersects with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). PTSD tends to distort memory, Kulik notes, as this trauma causes the mind to skip over some things and perversely overrecord others. As a result, wartime memory cannot be fully trusted. Kulik interrogates apocryphal stories about “Fuzzy” with this information in mind. Fuzzy was a nickname for a soldier (real or imagined) who purportedly wore a necklace of Vietnamese ears—ears he had purportedly cut off enemy soldiers. Kulik notes that although it was a serious war crime, the cutting of ears was a well-established phenomenon, though the wearing of ear necklaces was not. Though Fuzzy was likely unreal or an imagined composite character, Kulik records “the disturbing conclusion” that one CO medic “found a man who mutilated bodies ‘admirable.’ ” Such are the effects of war and wartime trauma on the human psyche.
Kulik also interrogates the notion of self-sacrifice. He asks if people really risk their lives—even unto death—to save their comrades. Stories of such heroism abound, but can they really be believed? Some 260 soldiers received the Congressional Medal of Honor for going above and beyond the call of duty in Vietnam, and so there are too many stories of uncommon valor to doubt their existence. But Kulik pushes further, asking why a person would do this. A common answer, popularized in movies and such shows as Band of Brothers, is that men are willing to sacrifice themselves because of the honorable sense of brotherhood. However, Kulik challenges this romanticized notion. “Count me a skeptic,” he writes. “That wasn’t my war. The Army I knew in Vietnam was marked by sharp unbrotherly divisions, by rank and by race. There were ‘juicers’ and ‘heads,’ true believers in the war and skeptical opponents, barely competent junior officers, and always—always—the bumbling fools who couldn’t properly clear their weapons, who fell out of guard towers asleep, or who never answered a radio check and put everyone at risk.” But there is more to the story—including evidence of genuine altruism. Though Kulik does not provide a definitive answer to his question, he suggests that many CO medics put their own lives at risk because of their religious convictions—specifically the teachings of Jesus—rather than an imagined sense of brotherhood.
Sabbathkeeping Medics
According to Kulik, CO medics were a diverse group. His narrative reflects that diversity, as it includes Catholics, evangelicals, pantheists, and Seventh-day Adventists. Kulik himself is a practicing Lutheran who identifies as a Catholic. Though CO medics came from a variety of backgrounds, Kulik underscores the importance of Seventh-day Adventism to American military history. In World War II and the Vietnam War (and presumably all the years in between), Seventh-day Adventists comprised approximately half of all CO medics who served in the military. Most African American CO medics in the military were also Adventists. Kulik argues that because of Adventism’s overwhelming presence and influence, no religious body “would be more important to the future of noncombatant service [in the American military] than the Seventh-day Adventists.”
Kulik first encountered Adventists in the military and has grown to respect them and their faith. Nevertheless, he admits that one aspect of Adventist faith “rankled” during the war. He explains: “Their Sabbath was Saturday, a half-day training day with make-work filling the afternoon for the rest of us, while they were excused from duty. They covered us on Sundays, of course, [but this was] a day when few cadres were in evidence and work duties were light.” Beyond common annoyance, Sabbath observance could cause more serious issues for Adventist soldiers, especially once deployed in Vietnam. Ron Donahey was among other Adventists who faced such challenges. Though Adventists did not object to doing medical duty on the Sabbath, they often shunned routine fatigue duty. As a result, when Donahey and his Adventist colleagues refused to fill sandbags on the Sabbath, their senior officers became irate. To avoid rash consequences for exercising their religious liberty, Donahey “requested a transfer from the relative safety of the headquarters company to a line company.” His request was granted, and he became the medic for Alpha Company and was placed in a weapons platoon on the front lines. Donahey did not face harassment after joining Alpha Company, but his determination to uphold his faith in the military put his life at serious risk. If the reader wants to learn of Donahey’s fate, I encourage them to read Kulik’s book (no spoiler alerts here!).
Kulik’s history of the Vietnam War is the first major work on Seventh-day Adventist soldiers who served during this conflict. As a result, it dispels some myths that have circulated since the 1960s. In 1968 Herbert Ford published a series of reports from the Vietnam battlefields in No Guns on Their Shoulders. Though not an interpretive history, Ford’s book title promoted a seemingly obvious thesis: Adventist medics “go unarmed into battle.” This narrative—that Adventist CO medics did not carry weapons—has stood unchallenged and has been recently repeated in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists. However, Kulik demonstrates that this simplistic narrative distorts the truth.
CO medics typically refused to carry weapons during military training. However, Kulik explains that all CO medics had to critically reassess their stance once they landed in Vietnam: would they carry a weapon when under enemy fire? COs divided on this question, and many chose to arm themselves, some with pistols and others with machine guns. Precisely how many did so is uncertain, but it is evident that many COs were willing to kill when threatened. Kulik provides numerous examples, including many Seventh-day Adventist COs who did carry guns “on their shoulders.”
For example, Tom Hirst, an Adventist CO medic in the 1st Cavalry Division, was offered a .45 pistol in Vietnam, but chose an M16 instead, which he dubbed his “patient protector.” Another Adventist CO medic, William Hall, did the same. In fact, Adventist CO medics so frequently carried weapons that half of the Adventists in at least one company chose to arm themselves. This common practice made “insider” peer pressure a real issue for Adventist soldiers who were tempted to join their gun-toting religious comrades. When faced with this pressure, one Adventist soldier admitted that he “did not want to be put in a situation to have to kill anyone, [but] if it came down to kill or be killed, [he] would kill.” However, he never faced this moral dilemma, because he was allowed to serve in the battalion aid station at a safe distance from enemy fire. Collectively, this evidence reminds us of the complexity of history. It reveals that common assumptions regarding history—specifically how the military service of COs is interpreted—need to be adjusted to fit the facts.
The Gray Zone of Conscience
Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War’s Forgotten Medics is an excellent book of interest to a wide audience. Gary Kulik’s work thoughtfully interrogates matters related to church and state. The Vietnam War raised numerous questions regarding faith, conscience, patriotism, liberty, and justice. Conscientious Objectors at War draws the reader into the gray zone that thousands of CO medics inhabited as they answered these questions, and encourages the reader to wrestle with the challenging issues that war and violence thrust onto self and society. Kulik’s work introduces the reader to the plight of officers who were tasked with granting COs their religious liberty on the battlefield. These liberties were typically granted, but in many cases rights were given to COs—especially Adventists who observed a Saturday Sabbath—with reluctance, scorn, or animosity. Kulik also dispels certain myths regarding CO medics. These men often refused to carry weapons, but perhaps just as often temporarily suspended their nonviolent beliefs for the sake of self-preservation. Though Americans no longer face the draft, Conscientious Objectors at War is an insightfully relevant work that commands the attention of all who struggle to uphold their religious ideals in a war-torn world that demands accommodation.
Article Author: Kevin Burton
Kevin Burton, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Adventist Research at Andrews University, and an assistant professor at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Berrien Springs, Michigan. He is an award-winning historian and the author of numerous academic papers, journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews. His forthcoming book, due out in 2026, is Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America (New York University Press).