Originally published by the Viginian-Pilot
For most of March, drivers on Interstate 64 near the Tidewater Drive exit in Norfolk passed an electronic billboard reminding them that military members have a duty to refuse illegal orders.Over the past few months, the same billboard played in cities such as San Diego, Chicago and New Orleans, often near military installations. One went up in Hampton this year and ran for about a month.
The billboards were paid for by Veterans For Peace, a national veteran-led anti-war organization. Army veteran Clayton Tye is the president of Veterans for Peace 757. He said the billboard campaign began after the strikes on boats in the Caribbean and coincides with what anti-war organizations say is increasing interest in their cause among service members.
“I’m looking at the justifications for war and I’m not seeing any,” said Tye. “I’m seeing our Secretary of Defense say that the rules of engagement are stupid and then to show the enemy no quarter. And that’s not the military to me. That’s not the U.S.”
Tye served in the early days of the War on Terror with the 101st Airborne Division, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment.
In 2021, the Afghanistan withdrawal began. Reports of an aid worker and several children being killed in a drone strike moved Tye to act.
“That was the last action that the U.S. military took in Afghanistan before they stopped flying planes out. It just hurt me tremendously,” said Tye. “Everything that had taken place in Afghanistan, this was it. This kind of summed it up.”
In early 2024, Tye teamed with other activists to bring Veterans For Peace to Hampton Roads. Since then, the local chapter’s membership has grown to about 50 veterans and service members.
Around the same time, Hani Nofal was a Navy nuclear submarine officer and looking for ways to get involved in the community.
A Palestinian-American, Nofal was disturbed by the civilian casualties during the fighting in Gaza. By then, Nofal had been in the Navy for more than a decade and completed several deployments. During the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, he was with the USS Boise in Newport News serving as a chief engineer.
On Nov. 29, 2023 — the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People — he submitted his paperwork to become a conscientious objector.
“Everyone was awestruck,” Nofal said. “I was a high performing department head.” Nofal said his values outweighed his career.
“I love being a submariner and I probably would’ve done it for a long time,” he said. “But obviously (I’ve) got to be able to look my kids or grandkids in the eyes one day and tell them why I made decisions that I did in light of everything that was happening.”
The military defines conscientious objection as “a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” The Department of Defense has codified protections for those who object to serving in the military on spiritual or moral grounds. Once a service member submits their conscientious objector packet, commanding officers must take steps to accommodate their beliefs.
The Center on Conscience and War, an organization that works to defend the rights of conscientious objectors, reported calls from service members interested in learning about becoming a conscientious objector increased by 1,000% over the past few weeks.
Mike Prysner, the center’s director and an Iraq war veteran, said the narrative about conscientious objectors has changed over the past two decades — in perception and in the political consciousness of service members.
He said most recent callers have referenced the Feb. 28 bombing of a girls elementary school in Minab, Iran, as a turning point.
“I haven’t heard from a single caller who said, ‘I’m scared of dying in a war I don’t believe in,’ ” said Prysner. “All of them are scared of killing people in a war they don’t believe in.”
According to Prysner, one of the biggest peaks in calls to the center was during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Service members expressed concerned about being deployed domestically.
“Incidents of mass consciousness and uprising that sweep the nation also bring into it people who are in the military,” said Prysner. “I think there’s a lot of presumptions and misconceptions about the kind of level of political development of people who are in the military and the kinds of things that make them want to resist.”
Steve Woolford, a resource counselor at the GI Rights Hotline, a nonprofit that provides non-directive counseling on U.S. military regulations and practices to service members, veterans and their families, said his phone has been ringing consistently as of late.
“We’ve had a huge increase in (conscientious objector) calls in the last year, especially when the National Guard started getting sent places domestically,” said Woolford. “We’ve had calls about the different actions with Venezuela where people feel totally confused about what’s going on and don’t see blowing up speedboats or capturing leaders of countries as part of defense. That only accelerated even more with this current conflict in Iran.”
Besides calls about conscientious objection, Woolford said they have also received calls from military members asking if they can outright refuse orders without consequence. His organization has had to caution people that simply refusing orders is complicated and carries serious risk of punishment.
“I think some people want to believe that there’s just a risk-free way to disobey and nothing’s going to happen,” said Woolford. “I try to be very realistic with people that these are political times and there are wildly different interpretations of what’s legal and not legal in this moment. And so there’s no way I can guarantee you it’s going to go your way.”
Prysner’s message is to give the Center on Conscience and War a call.
“I have a lot of regret about learning by going and doing and seeing it for myself and having a crisis of conscience while I was already deployed and after I had done things that I wish I wasn’t a part of,” Prysner said. “Right now, in the beginning of a new war, I just feel very personally motivated to try to find as many of those people as possible and let them know that they don’t have to go and that they have other choices.”
How service members become conscientious objectors
When service members who are considering becoming conscientious objectors call the Center on Conscience and War, they often speak with Bill Galvin, a counselor who walks them through the process and acts as a sounding board for what they are thinking and feeling.
Galvin remembers weighing his options during the Vietnam conflict. He applied for conscientious objector status but was turned down.
“I remember the draft board asking me at one point, ‘What are you going to do if we turn you down and draft you?’ ” said Galvin, who was 20 at the time. “I was kind of shaking thinking about this … And I said, ‘I guess that means I’ll go to jail.’ ”
Ultimately, his number wasn’t called. He graduated from seminary and began helping conscientious objectors.
Galvin and his colleagues work with interested service members to draft their application, which consists of about 20 written questions. Those include questions about what the service member believes about participating in war, what values they hold that prevent them from being able to participate in war and how those beliefs developed or changed during their time in the service. Sincerity is one of the things the military considers in the application.
“While the culture of the military wants to pretend that this is just something people make up to get out of their responsibilities, the reality is the military does know people feel this way,” Galvin said.
After submitting their packet, applicants meet with a chaplain and a mental health professional, and their submission is reviewed at an investigating officer hearing. The investigating officer then recommends the approval or denial of the application.
The center helps those who are facing a denial to draft a rebuttal. Galvin said nearly all of their applications get approved.
It takes an average of about one year for the process to complete. But Nofal remained in the Navy for nearly two years after he submitted his paperwork.
“It was frustrating,” said Nofal. “Big picture, they just looked at it as any other resignation.”
His application went all the way to the Secretary of the Navy and eventually was denied. His options were to either pursue an administrative discharge, which would result in him losing and paying back his benefits, or completing his service obligation. He chose the latter and separated in April 2025.
Nofal now lives in Nashville with his family. He sits on the board of the Rebuilding Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates and works for the human rights of Palestinian people. He is starting his own financial advising firm in the coming weeks.
“I feel like I made the right decision by resigning, but I did give up a lot of stability for a short period of time,” said Nofal. “On the advocacy side, I’m able to use my voice a lot more than I was previously and get more directly involved in a lot of efforts to support movements around the world than I would have if I stayed active duty.”
Benjamin Brodt will separate from the Army on April 10, about a year after he submitted his conscientious objector application.
Brodt grew up outside of New Orleans in a Christian home and joined the military out of high school.
“At the time, I was a diehard believer in the mission,” said Brodt. “I believed that America was a force for good and a city on a hill, and that the United States military was the tip of the spear in helping people across the world.”
The Army paid for his college degree and he commissioned as an officer in 2023. He began flight school to fly Apaches, but soon began to feel his religion didn’t align with his role in the military.
“I realized that loving my neighbor was incompatible with wanting to kill them. And so I wrestled with it for a long time — for a year and a half — and it was a very hard year and a half,” said Brodt. “I got into some really dark places, but overwhelmingly, my conscience, the voice in my head just kept saying, ‘You have to do something. You have to do something. You can’t go kill people.’ ”
Feeling conflicted, Brodt turned to Google for answers. The results led him to the Center on Conscience and War. Galvin answered the call.
“(Galvin) was an incredible resource, and he helped talk me through it, just how I was feeling emotionally and mentally. And then when I told him I was ready to actually start the process, he read some of my drafts, helped me figure out what to do.”
Brodt will have to repay the government about $85,000 for his college education. But he said he’s looking forward to his next chapter.
“It’s very nice, very exciting. It feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” said Brodt.
Brodt wants to become a history teacher and help people understand why the past matters. As for his fellow service members who may be considering becoming conscientious objectors, Brodt wants them to know that they are in good company — in the past and present.
“It’s a difficult thing to totally upend your entire life and your plans and your future, but you’re not alone,” he said. “There is thousands of years of people who have gone before you, and you stand on their shoulders. And I think if you’re really asking those questions at this point, you’re probably on the right track.”
