Court Denies Enlisted Doctor Conscientious Objector Status

Earlier this month, a Boston anesthesiologist successfully claimed conscientious objector status and avoided being ordered to active military duty. A Massachusetts court decided she should be discharged, with her agreeing to repay, with interest, the money the government spent on her medical education. Now it turns out that her attorney, within days, also sued on behalf of two other anesthesiologists who are seeking conscientious objector status allegedly developed after their enlistments. Yesterday's Detroit News reports that Detroit federal judge Avern Cohn has sided with the army and rejected the CO application of one of them, Dr. Ryan Hae Kwon, a Christian who was born in South Korea and who moved to Hawaii as a child. Major David M. Wilson, who investigated Kwon's claim for the Army, said Kwon developed sincere beliefs against war over the course of a year after seeing accounts and photos of events in Iraq. The army, however, said that it is short on anesthesiologists.