New Books In Christian Studies

During the war in Vietnam, thousands of young men served as conscientious objector medics. They had been certified by their local draft boards as noncombatants, but many would know intense combat nonetheless. Without weapons training, they ran through the infantry lines, answering the desperate call, "Medic!" Many displayed exemplary heroism even at the cost of their lives. With the end of the draft, we will never see their like again. Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics (Texas Tech University Press, 2025) tells their stories within the background context of pacifist churches in America. It is the first book exclusively devoted to such men, who emerged initially from the historic peace churches--Quakers, Brethren, Mennonites--and from Seventh-day Adventists, who would comprise roughly half of all conscientious objector medics serving in the Vietnam War. From World War II on, growing numbers of men from mainstream churches made the same choices, and after a Supreme Court decisio