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Historians Gregory Howell (PhD) and Jim Wibberding (DMin) take us on a journey through the world of Adventist history with interviews, discoveries, and details you won't hear anywhere else.
Greg Howell (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Adventist Pilgrimage Podcast. This is your host, Greg Howell, and I'm joined by Jim Wiberding, our fellow co-host
Jim Wibberding (00:07)
I'm excited to be here and excited to talk to Gary today.
Greg Howell (00:09)
Yeah,
yeah, we've got a special guest here. And I love, we were just talking here right before we started recording, how we're recording this on a particularly momentous day specific to our topic, and it's Memorial Day for us. You'll probably listen to this much past Memorial Day. But for us here in the moment, I think it's a really important thing because we have our special guest, Gary Kulick.
Gary is a veteran of the American military. He's got a lot of great stories and we invited him on today because he just wrote a fantastic book. Gary, give us a little bit of your personal background if you could and what book we're gonna be talking about today.
Gary Kulik (00:43)
the book I wrote has the in your face title of Conscientious Objectors at War, The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics. I wrote the book because
the library shelves grown with books about Vietnam.
None of these books tell us anything about men who serve as conscientious objectors, Vietnam. And there are a variety of reasons for that. Some of it, I think, just misunderstanding. The term itself connotes a kind of black and white world in which ⁓ we can understand people.
who know anything at all about conscientious objection, there were people who sought alternative service honorably. But in my experience, are substantial numbers of people who have no idea that men also had the choice, going before a draft board, to declare themselves conscientious objectors, that is, men unwilling to kill.
Greg Howell (01:19)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (01:36)
but willing to serve. And this is the forgotten history that I chose to write about through the use of interviews and oral history, memoir, and it's a personal story since I too served as a conscientious objector medic in 1970, 71 in the central highlands of Vietnam.
It's my story too and I write about that in the book, a kind of apology that I'm going to intrude myself into this book. at one level it's an academic book. I have a PhD. I came back to finish a PhD in American history, American literature at Brown University. So in some ways it's a simple scholarly book, but.
in another way, it's a very different book because my history and my commentary is in that book. the decision to serve as a CEO medic was the most important moral decision I've ever made.
And,
There's no way I could write about it without putting myself in it.
Greg Howell (02:42)
Yeah. that big discussion in how we do history is always how much of the historian goes into the narrative, you know, should we be the passive observer? Should we pull ourselves back and just be, you know, completely normative in our assessment? And yet you can't. I mean, there's no there's no way here you could be unbiased or at least even unfeeling about the topic.
Gary Kulik (03:00)
Well, yeah, I think obviously it depends on what you're writing about. But in this case, yes. My voice needed to be in this book.
Jim Wibberding (03:07)
makes sense. noticed when you were writing about it in the preface, talking about that intrusion of your story into the larger narrative, I think your words were, be it. It's just going to be this way. And I loved that as I saw your story woven throughout the larger narrative, the other people's stories. I think that added a great deal to the narrative. So appreciate that.
Greg Howell (03:15)
Yeah.
Gary Kulik (03:17)
system.
Greg Howell (03:27)
Yeah,
Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, let's dive right in here, Gary. Again, appreciate your background on this and the extensive work you've done. And I have to say, as I was reading through the book, this was not just a memoir from a historian who fought in Vietnam, but this was a wide, wide scope. Your background looking at World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and up into various other places. This was a history of conscientious objection.
Gary Kulik (03:27)
Thank you. Thank you.
Greg Howell (03:55)
in the American military is how I kind of looked at it.
Gary Kulik (03:58)
That's right. And I would have been happy to read about it. I could.
Greg Howell (04:03)
Yeah,
you wrote the book you wanted to read.
Gary Kulik (04:06)
I had to write about it instead, right? It's exactly what it is, a book of how over time in.
Greg Howell (04:08)
Yeah, nice.
Gary Kulik (04:13)
chose to serve in the military without killing, choosing not to kill, choosing not to carry weapons.
Greg Howell (04:19)
Yeah.
Jim Wibberding (04:19)
You
know, part of the backdrop for ⁓ some of our audience, those who grew up Seventh Day Adventist is that we've often heard the story of Desmond Doss in World War Two, right? And that's been immortalized in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, perhaps imperfectly, but nonetheless ⁓ became a pop phenomenon. And I think it might be helpful to some of our audience members to kind of understand the distinction between how it was in World War Two.
Gary Kulik (04:29)
Of course. Yeah.
Greg Howell (04:35)
You
Jim Wibberding (04:45)
the terms and conditions under which Desmond Doss and others like him served and what you experienced in Vietnam.
Gary Kulik (04:53)
there is a very good documentary that was done on on DOS, but it it. I'm still not sure how it was, what sort of training he had before. Going off to the Pacific to to to. To do the remarkable things that he did, remarkably Medal of Honor winner.
you
For the Vietnam era, those of us who went before draft boards and said, I'm willing to serve but not willing to kill, and assuming the draft board agreed with you, and not all did, then you went off to basic training. And in 1954, the Army had established a dedicated basic training facility for
country interest objectors Fort Sam Houston. It was a six week training program.
I assume DAS would have been thrown into a regular basic training program and it would have had a great deal of difficulty in explaining why he wasn't going to go to the rifle range. The same thing had happened in World War I, where men who were willing to serve as COs ended up in
basic training with everybody else being trained for the rifle range. the Army finally decided throwing COs into regular basic training was a mistake. So let's give them their own basic training. It was the same training as anyone else would have gone through, except it was shorter and there was no rifle range.
Greg Howell (06:07)
Mm.
Gary Kulik (06:16)
And then Fort Sam was the place where all medical training took place. So when you graduated after six weeks, you moved across posts to do 10 weeks of medical training. And at that point, orders came down and the need for medics in Vietnam was overwhelming. Every infantry platoon requires one.
medic, every 30 men needs, there's a medic going out in the field with those men and many, many more in reserve on fire bases, landing zones, base camps. So a different experience than DOS because of the way the army had established a new training program.
Jim Wibberding (06:56)
Okay.
Gary Kulik (06:57)
Das understood that he would be a medic. He'd be trained as a medic. And that wasn't the case in World War I. The idea was simply if you were a noncombatant, you could be assigned to anywhere, engineer, signal corps. But in the early years of World War II, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, actually, at that point, decided that
that all medics, all CEOs would be trained as medics and that resisted through Korea, through Vietnam.
Greg Howell (07:23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. My grandpa was drafted and was headed to the Pacific as well. And I can remember him talking a little bit about his training as a medic, but he said a large portion of his basic training was spent cleaning the latrines and peeling potatoes. That's kind of how he remembers early training days at that point in time.
Gary Kulik (07:42)
I'm sure that's still the case today.
Greg Howell (07:44)
Yeah,
yeah, right. So, Gary, in your background as serving as a CEO, ⁓ what were some of the challenges that you personally experienced in just going into the military, knowing, you know, you've made this this massive moral choice, like you mentioned, it's one of the greatest moral choices you've made. How how did you go through the process of making it? But then how much also did
Gary Kulik (07:51)
This
Greg Howell (08:08)
your experience later on affect keeping it because I'm sure that's something that once you're out there in the actual field, the decision is tested again,
Gary Kulik (08:16)
Yes, Well, I write about the decision as an imperfect compromise.
Greg Howell (08:22)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (08:23)
I was deeply opposed to the war in Vietnam, as many young men on the left as I was then were.
and the draft loomed. There were certain things I was unwilling to do. I could not serve as an officer.
in a war I opposed.
I had grown up in a military family, a family of officers. my father wasn't active duty when, when I was growing up, but he'd been a Marine and was, went into the army Air Corps as a bombardier during World War II and remained as the Air Corps became the Air Force. He was a reserve major at the time I was making this decision and his job was to recruit.
students for the Air Force Academy. His two brothers were service academy graduates, West Point and Annapolis. So that's my background. In any other circumstance, I would have embraced.
being an officer. I couldn't do that.
I wasn't going to jail. I wasn't going to Canada. I had a very prickly moral conscience
I saw the National Guard in those years as principally an outlet for those with political connections to avoid service in Vietnam. I could join the National Guard even though I had a history teacher who was the chaplain of a local National Guard unit. I would get a chance to revisit my moral superiority on those issues once in basic training.
Greg Howell (09:34)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (09:49)
Because I grew up in a military family, was looking for ways to allow my family to save face in a way, I guess, my father, especially. I had no particular desire to do alternative service for two years, whatever that would mean.
truth be told, I was not then and now a principled pacifist.
morally complicated, imperfect decision and very gray, you know, worlds of where there were often black and white choices.
⁓
So all of that, all of that together led me to go before a draft board to say that I'm willing to serve, but I'm not going to take up a weapon. Now, your other question, of course, is it's very easy to say that in front of a draft board. There's an existential moment, which happens in a war zone,
Greg Howell (10:32)
You
Gary Kulik (10:38)
I'm assigned to this orientation program. A clerk comes out from the company that I'm going to ultimately be assigned to within M-16.
And he hands it to me or he gestures that he's about to hand it to me and I say, I'm not going to take it. I'm a draft board certified conscientious objector. And the guy sitting next to me, standing next to me is also going to the same company. He was a medic too. And I still remember the joke. He said, what are going to do? Kill them with your bare hands?
Greg Howell (11:07)
you
Gary Kulik (11:07)
But, you know, I didn't take the weapon.
I remember I'm the only CEO in this orientation program and no one's hassling me. I think that was one of your, one of the questions that you raised that no one was concerned about this except the jokester So while people were at the rifle range, I just sat and watched.
Jim Wibberding (11:26)
Interesting.
Gary Kulik (11:27)
And the M16, as we tragically know, is a very simple weapon.
We know that because of the way it gets used, its predecessors, its successors get used in civilian life.
Greg Howell (11:38)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (11:40)
So I felt, in extremis, I knew everything I needed to know about.
loading, aiming, firing the weapon. I was never faced with necessity.
Greg Howell (11:52)
Yeah, that's good. Some of your discussions here, obviously, are talking about just your own personal experience. But I wanted to jump over into one that's particularly interesting for some of our Seventh-day Adventist ⁓ listeners, Operation White Coat. And this one was mentioned here and later on in the book as a pretty interesting alternative path for some Seventh-day Adventists who were also conscientious objectors. What were your thoughts on the program?
Gary Kulik (12:01)
Of course.
Greg Howell (12:14)
Did you yourself consider it as an option?
Gary Kulik (12:16)
It was never offered as an option to those of us who were not Adventists. It was specifically for Adventists. And I don't think I even knew about it.
Greg Howell (12:17)
Ahem.
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (12:25)
when I served. I must have heard something about it.
My basic training class was divided into two platoons, half of whom were Adventists, half were the rest of us. I only later came to find out that the White Coat Program had been around for quite some time, established in the 1950s, I believe, with the encouragement of the leadership of the church.
And
during the time that I served in basic training, there was no selection process at that time for the White Coat Program. I later learned only doing research years and years later. I did research in Silver Spring. And it was only then that I discovered that the medical corps in company with Adventist elders would meet
twice a year at Fort Sam's basic training facility and decide among the volunteers who would actually serve at Frederick, Maryland, where the program had its origins.
The program, I think, became controversial both within the church and certainly outside of it. And it took on a fundamentally different meaning in the context of Vietnam.
earlier if you chose to volunteer for the program. This was pretty much after, it was a long period after the Korean War and before Vietnam. Actually not so long, but enough. that
volunteering for white coat while the Vietnam War was going on was a ticket out of Vietnam.
Greg Howell (14:03)
Hmm. How so? What were they doing in the project?
Gary Kulik (14:06)
if you volunteered, and my understanding is that as the war heated up, almost every Adventist volunteered.
And that wouldn't have been the case earlier.
Greg Howell (14:16)
So this became almost like a denominational exit ramp.
Gary Kulik (14:19)
It definitely was that, as long as you were willing to do what the Army Medical Corps wanted you to do.
Greg Howell (14:26)
What kind of stuff were they asking of him?
Gary Kulik (14:26)
And
my understanding is that you had to volunteer twice.
Let me back up and say, when I've written about white coat, I think it's fair and honest.
I mean, people are basically volunteering for medical experiments.
Greg Howell (14:44)
Hmm.
which already has the ring of horror to it.
Gary Kulik (14:47)
Exactly. had based on everything I know.
Jim Wibberding (14:48)
Indeed.
Gary Kulik (14:52)
these experiments were conducted with consent on the part of the volunteer. My understanding was that you volunteered both for the program, the White Coat program, and you had to also volunteer for the experiments. And there's anecdotal evidence that some people went through their two years without ever being exposed to any. ⁓
experimental treatments. The experiments were designed to assist the medical corps in preventing illness in a defensive measure.
Greg Howell (15:25)
So they're
taking medicines that are supposed to help, supposed to heal, but they're just testing them out quicker than perhaps the FDA process today. Yeah, I was gonna say, this does not sound like it would pass muster on a couple of different areas.
Gary Kulik (15:32)
I don't think you could do this today.
Jim Wibberding (15:35)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (15:36)
No,
I think there's still queasiness. But it's interesting to me that the White Coats are the only CEOs who have gathered after the fact. there are documentaries that suggest that many of them were proud of their service.
Greg Howell (15:46)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (15:54)
would do it again, had no adverse effects as a result of that. There are medical studies that suggest that. I think I wanted to write about it in a way that was not sensational and that used whatever evidence I could find to suggest that there's very limited evidence of people
with prolonged sicknesses as a result of that. The people who served as white coats gathered together a few years ago and there was a documentary about that that I'm sure that has been seen widely in Adventist churches. It's a largely positive one. However, it's still queasy making, isn't it?
Jim Wibberding (16:36)
Yeah.
Greg Howell (16:40)
Yeah,
I mean, instantly my head goes to, they testing Agent Orange on these guys? know, like, what are we looking at? But you mentioned this is not an offensive nature test. It's a defensive and a fixing, yeah.
Gary Kulik (16:50)
Right.
Well, that was the call.
Jim Wibberding (16:52)
I'd be interested to pick up on the white Operation White Coat and ask you a broader thematic question here. First of all, my father-in-law, Stan Oakes, was a participant in Operation White Coat. for him, it was religious reasons. And before him, my grandfather, Dr. Jack Elvin, was in World War II and he was a medic and also
served in that capacity for religious reasons. And that's really, you know, within the Seventh-day Adventist tradition, that's a major part of that, even though, as you note, think, accurately in your book, Seventh-day Adventists are not among the group of peace religions, but there's still this strain, this underlying idea. And that started very early, which you also mentioned in the book. 1864, we have the
the conference leaders sending a letter to the governor of Michigan expressing support for the North in the Civil War, but asking for opportunity for exemption based on two commandments, the Sabbath and so the fourth and the sixth commandments. And so for me, this has been when we talk about conscientious objection, it's a religious thing. It was interesting to read your book and read about a ⁓
Gary Kulik (17:52)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Wibberding (18:03)
Pantheist, which is a religious perspective, And then the United States versus Seeger in 1965 that broadened it beyond religious objections. I'm curious about that aspect.
Greg Howell (18:06)
You
Gary Kulik (18:14)
65.
Well,
the 65 decision basically broadened the definition of what it meant to believe in a supreme being. And it opened up the possibility that
Jim Wibberding (18:27)
Okay.
Gary Kulik (18:32)
that religious training and belief, which was written into the law, could be broadened to include ethical training and belief. Not every draft board got the message. But certainly as the war, war on, as the draft was,
became very controversial. Increasing numbers of men made their claims in a non-traditional religious way, an ethical way. But in my experience, the overwhelming majority of ⁓
And obviously, the huge number of Adventists were there for.
for ⁓ a deep belief, as you say, in Sabbath keeping and thou shalt not kill. But I also found that men who were coming from other traditions were also making religious claims.
So I think the story is basically a religious one. And the men I went through training with were deeply committed Christians,
These were people who had absorbed the Gospels,
Greg Howell (19:42)
your Quakers, your Mennonites, the Christians who, you know, have a pacifist background largely or even just in general. I'm just kind of wondering how many of these CEOs are riding on a tradition of pacifism within their denominations and how many of them are just coming to this in their own moment?
Gary Kulik (19:56)
Thanks.
I think.
If you're talking about the people coming out of traditional peace churches, the Friends, Mennonites, Moravians, these were people who far more likely, I didn't encounter these folks in the military. These were people far more likely to claim alternative service and have no problem with it because that's what their churches had long
believe they're coming out of that background.
Greg Howell (20:23)
They're taught that. It's a
major discussion point within their churches, yeah.
Gary Kulik (20:27)
Right. And this was not controversial. If you were a Quaker, you went before a draft board and you said, I can't serve in the military, period. You would end up doing alternative service. The Christian people I served with came out of churches that had just war doctrines, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists.
Greg Howell (20:46)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (20:46)
And, you know, they found their way with the support of the churches. Every major Protestant church, mainstream Protestant churches, as well as Roman Catholic Church, supported the idea that their members could be conscientious objectors. That wasn't out of, that was their
Greg Howell (21:04)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (21:07)
understanding of the gospel. ⁓ So there was widespread support, but it was very different than if you came up in a traditional peace church, and especially different for Seventh-day Adventists who, there was a medical cadet corps.
Jim Wibberding (21:09)
Interesting.
Gary Kulik (21:24)
that you could enroll in in high school, which gave you a head start on basic training at Fort Sam.
Greg Howell (21:28)
Mm-hmm.
Jim Wibberding (21:32)
Yeah. Now this is a lot of nuances in your work here. And one of them that I was particularly interested in was really a central contribution of your book. And that is your chapter on historical background to non combat and service. I haven't seen anything like that before. And then of course, your larger book illustrates it well. As you surveyed the development of
Greg Howell (21:48)
Mm-mm.
Jim Wibberding (21:54)
CO service through time. What were some of the surprises perhaps or if there were no surprises for you as a well-studied historian, what are some of the highlights that you want to share with your readers
Gary Kulik (22:06)
That's a good question. Let me think for a bit.
I think one of the surprises was that...
In World War II, there was a much higher percentage of people willing to serve in noncombatant roles than were willing to serve in alternative service. And that surprised me. But part of the reason for that is that alternative service was sharply defined, especially in the early years of World War II,
expectation was that you would go to one of the civilian conservation corps camps and do forestry work. so instead of having an option of working in a hospital or a mental health clinic, which became possible during the Vietnam War era,
You were channeled into this forestry program. There were some exceptions, but there was a heavy emphasis that we're just going to put all these people together in these former CCC camps, and we're going to send them out to do forestry-related work.
This created a lot of tension, particularly among the Quakers who thought this was a waste of time. I mean, let me do something that was more meaningful. And I think for that reason, it became an unattractive alternative for people.
Greg Howell (23:26)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (23:27)
and the most prominent conscientious objector during World War II was an actor named Lou Ayers. Lou Ayers won his fame by actually, he was the lead actor in All Quiet on the Western Front, the first version of that movie. And he was a kind of self-taught, didn't go to college seeker.
Greg Howell (23:38)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (23:45)
And so was short biography of him, which I read and which is, I know in the book, that he was assigned to one of these camps and just tainted it, and decided, I want to do something else. I'd rather serve. And so he made a decision to serve honorably as a medic.
and I think spent some time as a chaplain's assistant as well in the Pacific. So that was surprising to me.
Greg Howell (24:11)
I've just started to think about this, I've noticed that the more recent generations, are perhaps less inclined to simply follow whatever the denomination, has stipulated. you know, there's a lot more independent thinking. if, know, somebody's going in as a CEO, uh, they may claim it, you know, because that's what their church believes, or they just may claim it as what they believe.
⁓ How do you think the military has handled that? there's paperwork that needs to come from the denomination saying, yes, this is an official belief of ours. But that's going to adjust and change over the years. What does CO status entail? And how does it grow with that change in social dynamics?
Gary Kulik (24:50)
I'm not sure I understand the question because.
I mean, once the draft was over, that's it. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't matter anymore. I think for Adventists, there's some evidence. I ran across this in the archives at Silver Spring. As the war wound on, there were students at, I believe, was it Columbia Union? Is that the college?
Greg Howell (24:55)
Okay.
It used to be, yeah, now it's Washington
Adventist University, but yeah.
Gary Kulik (25:14)
the Washington Adventists who were recorded as saying, you know.
Why are we supposed to serve on our medics? Why can't ⁓ we do alternative service? there was that criticism. those students are beginning to be influenced by the anti-war movement and challenging the tradition of
of the church. And of course, were Adventists who opted simply to enlist. I'll tell you a story.
My second assignment in Vietnam was to helicopter medevac evacuation battalion. And I had a very good experience with a man named Ernie Sylvester He was a major at that time. He was the chief operations officer.
for the battalion, a pilot. And it turns out, I didn't knew none of this at the time, except I liked and respected him.
He was on his second tour. I think I knew that. But what I didn't know is that he was ⁓ in effect there at the beginning of this program to establish Army helicopter evacuation. And there's a hall of fame for those folks and he's in it.
And I was at a conference some years ago, a years, just a few years ago in San Antonio. And there's Ernie suffering from Parkinson's, I thought at the time, on this monitor talking about early helicopter evacuation. Well, I had so much respect for him as an officer that I wanted to find out a little bit more.
And he ended up in a retirement community in Florida. I found his obituary. He was a seven day Adventist.
you know, he'd made a choice to do something that would help save people's lives without declaring himself a conscientious objector.
Greg Howell (27:05)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (27:06)
as an officer, he would have had to go through weapons training. There was no way around that. But that struck me as a...
you know, here's a man I had deep respect for, didn't know he was an Adventist, but it made, all of it made sense. So those were choices available to people who came out of the Adventist tradition as well. Ernie was a great example of that.
Greg Howell (27:30)
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's kind of why I brought the question up, because I know in my own family, my grandfather claimed CEO status, ⁓ was headed to the Pacific as a medic, as was typical, but his cousin, his cousin Esli was not. Esli just enlisted and became basic infantry in the Black Forest, you know. ⁓ And their experience coming home was what was interesting. Grandpa, though he actually only got on the boat,
Jim Wibberding (27:31)
Hmph.
Gary Kulik (27:41)
It was good.
Mm-hmm.
Greg Howell (27:55)
They were just about to depart into the Pacific, and then they were told, get off the boat, go back to the barracks, we just dropped the bomb. So Grandpa never saw any moment for his medical training to be used. Uncle Esley fought all the way through the last couple of years, and even stayed over in the cleanup and the reconstruction. Esley comes home and is treated pretty poorly, while Grandpa, who saw no action,
Gary Kulik (28:13)
It's over.
Greg Howell (28:22)
⁓ Is is lauded as a hero at least in the local churches in the family in fact I remember Uncle Ashley is kind of the black sheep of the family and and largely after listening a little bit to it It was because of how They enlisted and what they claimed when they went in It's an interesting background and this is where I want to Bring out the last couple of questions here. What do you think the experience for these CEOs coming home? ⁓
What are you seeing in their stories? You've mentioned a lot of PTSD ⁓ and some survivor's guilt perhaps that's also coming with that. But as religious ⁓ figures here who have taken their stand and are now coming back to it, what do you think was the experience for some of these guys on the way home?
Gary Kulik (29:04)
I don't think there's a typical experience.
I interviewed two people very like myself, I think, who came out of Roman Catholic background, both still really angry about the war.
and guilty.
deeply guilty about it. And in fact, I think the two chapters I wrote on those two men are
among the stronger chapters in the book, if I can say that myself, and stronger in the sense that I didn't understand it. And I inserted myself into their stories. But both served as CO medics and came back feeling that they couldn't extricate themselves from the guild associated with the war.
Greg Howell (29:31)
Yeah. No, I agree.
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (29:53)
And that surprised me. That surprised me ⁓ a lot.
Greg Howell (29:56)
did they try to explain that or was it just like this overwhelming guilt feeling?
Gary Kulik (29:59)
I think.
It was just this powerful sense of guilt. they were part of the destruction. it's hard now to, to find anything worthy about service in Vietnam. It's very difficult, even though
You know, I went to great lengths to make sure that I didn't want to fall into that. I didn't want to fall into that kind of despair. But I had to be honest as well. mean, war was a mistake.
Jim Wibberding (30:30)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (30:31)
You know, we had no business sending ground troops into Vietnam. It made a bloody civil war even worse. So I think the two people I wrote about went on to distinguish, in some ways, distinguished professional careers. One became a very important poet.
Greg Howell (30:37)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (30:46)
the other, an important newspaper man.
And, they came home to a culture that saw nothing valuable about Vietnam.
Greg Howell (30:54)
Yeah,
you mentioned Paquette here and I found it was interesting that his CEO status was granted based on his Christian perspective and his Christian teaching, which you mentioned is kind of broadening the definition for that religious belief system as it was. For you yourself, coming back home, ⁓ how did the CEO experience inform your later career choices and decisions?
Gary Kulik (31:10)
Mm-hmm.
my career choices had been made before I was drafted. Yeah, I think it was, it took me a long time to even think.
Greg Howell (31:19)
Hmm, so you already had a directory.
Gary Kulik (31:25)
deeply about Vietnam. I just wanted to put it behind me and get on with the career I had started. I'm drafted of Brown University after my first year in graduate school.
Greg Howell (31:39)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (31:40)
And I went back as if...
I can't say as if nothing had happened.
But I went back, fully embracing what I had started and pushing Vietnam into the background.
Greg Howell (31:50)
Is that largely just your own impetus or is that also impacted by the reception of veterans coming home from that war particularly anyway?
Gary Kulik (31:58)
I think I wrote about this in my first book. I'm back at Brown. I'm at a lunch. I tell people that I served in Vietnam as a conscientious objector. And there's a there's a short, very smarmy history graduate student sitting across from me who basically says
You know, there were easier options.
Greg Howell (32:17)
Little judgmental there.
Gary Kulik (32:18)
And I'm registering this as a kind of spit.
Greg Howell (32:22)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (32:23)
And the easier option for him was to fake a medical deferment. He was a very short guy. And apparently he gorged himself before his physical so that he'd be overweight, in terms of his height. And of all the options, of all the choices that people made,
to avoid service in Vietnam. This is, I think, the violist, the con of the medical deferment. And I write about this briefly in the conclusion of this new book. I just couldn't see it. mean, it just, there's something deeply inauthentic.
Greg Howell (32:46)
Mm.
Gary Kulik (33:01)
Consciousness has a cost.
Greg Howell (33:02)
Mm.
Jim Wibberding (33:03)
Hmm.
Greg Howell (33:03)
Which is kind of why you describe at the beginning an imperfect compromise. Because it does have a cost.
Gary Kulik (33:08)
an imperfect
capitalist, but one that I paid a cost for. I mean, people who wanted to manipulate a doctor's diagnosis or
Greg Howell (33:12)
Mm-mm.
Jim Wibberding (33:13)
No doubt.
Gary Kulik (33:22)
I just found it repulsive.
Greg Howell (33:26)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (33:28)
So.
Jim Wibberding (33:29)
Yeah.
Gary Kulik (33:29)
The truth of the matter is that...
I finished my PhD. I did a good bit of what I wanted to do. I edited an important scholarly journal for Tom American Quarterly. I had university teaching posts, but I did most of my work in museums and management positions at the Smiths and later in a large museum in Delaware. And
The truth is I began writing about Vietnam because in my second job in Delaware.
I was increasingly unhappy in the job. The board, was very senior and the board was moving in directions that I couldn't support and eventually I resigned. But it took me a while to get to that resignation. recognizing my unhappiness while I was still in the job, my wife said
You need a project.
Jim Wibberding (34:22)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (34:22)
And so the project became my first book and on Vietnam, on the war. And that just continued even as I happily left my job and found a kind of new career. My early research wasn't on anything related to foreign policy or military history but this, you know,
Greg Howell (34:25)
Mm.
Gary Kulik (34:49)
I found a certain pleasure in doing this and.
I hope it leads to ⁓ more work. This is a thin book that I hope can inspire others to go deeper into the whole story of conscientious objection during the war. you know, at this point, there's no history of overall conscientious objection.
Greg Howell (35:10)
Mm-mm.
Gary Kulik (35:11)
know, the alternative service people haven't been favored either. We don't know much about that process.
Jim Wibberding (35:19)
A lot of work
to be done here.
Greg Howell (35:20)
it's a seminal work in that sense, because I haven't seen this much detail put into this particular area, so, no, it's fantastic.
Jim Wibberding (35:27)
Yeah.
we're about to wind down our conversation, but I do want to get a question in before we do. And it has to do with that ethical moral tension that you describe. You one of the takeaways from reading your book is that kind of murkiness of the decision-making process for many CEOs. It's not ethically or morally clear.
in the way that some of the triumphalist narratives have presented it. And I've often felt this tension as I think about the Adventist tradition. You have the civil war, you have the leaders supporting the North in the war and banding together to pay the $300 for exemption. And you get to some of the later wars, World War I. There's a show of patriotism.
Because Adventists are under scrutiny since they don't want to fight in the war so you kind of support but but don't then you have World War two and Adventists by that time had developed a the 47th General Hospital Which was a deployable? Division of the Adventist Church to be used by the War Department and you get to ⁓ Operation white coat and all this and in the midst of all this the question that always comes forward is
Yes, you choose not to kill, but you're part of the killing machine, I think that that comes through at several moments in your narrative. What I'm curious about is how writing this book, doing the research has perhaps helped you along or how has it affected you in processing your own ⁓ historical choice and how you've related to all that?
Gary Kulik (37:02)
Hmm.
I think I'm a person who can live comfortably with ambiguity. ⁓ And I think writing about the grayness of my choice.
Jim Wibberding (37:10)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (37:18)
which in some sense simply writing about what it means to be human.
Jim Wibberding (37:21)
Mm-hmm.
Gary Kulik (37:22)
I mean the idea of...
know, perfect. There are no perfect decisions.
I suppose that was what made it difficult for me to quite understand the sense of pervasive guilt that my two fellow CEOs who came out of the Catholic tradition left the war with. I have no sense of guilt about what I did in Vietnam. I feel that I acted honorably.
Greg Howell (37:39)
Hmm.
Gary Kulik (37:48)
But I recognize the decision was imperfect. It was a compromise. It doesn't trouble me.
I'm not sure it ever did. It has much to do with the quirks of human personality.
Greg Howell (38:03)
I wonder for those other fellows, I obviously didn't know them or anything, but perhaps there was this unspoken expectation that their decision to take on CEO status would have somewhat, you know, assuaged the guilt that they feared would come with something else, you know, and then in the ultimate reality perhaps that's not what happened.
Gary Kulik (38:25)
No, I think again, the nature of the war itself really wore on people who were making a decision because they opposed, it was not only killing, they opposed the war.
So yeah, they went to a war that many of their fellow citizens regard as immoral. so that can weigh heavily on fragile consciences.
Jim Wibberding (38:53)
really appreciate your ⁓ answer to that question because the world is gray and narratives that preserve the grayness are more helpful in processing present day decisions.
Greg Howell (39:04)
Yeah, yeah, no, Gary, I want to say thank you on several different levels for one, just honoring us to come on the podcast and discuss your book. Again, a fantastic book. Just kind of looking at the overall details of that, but also just thank you for your service. Thank you for the, ability to take that moral ambiguity, to move forward in your own life with it then be able to share it in a powerful way. So on several different levels, thank you so much for being here with us.
And folks, if you're just listening in here for the first time, welcome to the Adventist Pilgrimage Podcast. You've had a chance here to hear a moment in history, both from someone who has served, but also who is dug into the stories of those others who have served in this moment. But again, Gary, thanks so much for coming.
Gary Kulik (39:44)
Thank you. Thank you both for inviting me. Thank you both your probing and thoughtful questions.
This has been a good experience for me, And I appreciate the opportunity to do this. And I have an abiding respect for...
the Adventists that I knew in basic training. And I hope that...
This story, especially for Adventist history, becomes better known.
Greg Howell (40:17)
Yeah, yeah, I'm into that. Well, thank you again, and thank you for coming on Memorial Day. Happy Memorial Day to you.
Jim Wibberding (40:18)
me too.
Gary Kulik (40:23)
My privilege.