One young man’s moral courage in the Practice of our Faith.
One year ago, in February, a young man attended Westerly Meeting for the first time. During introductions he merely stated his name, Mike Izbicki, but later, at rise of meeting, I discovered he was a Naval officer with degrees from Annapolis and Johns Hopkins, now stationed at the submarine base in Groton, CT, and he had applied for discharge based on conscientious objection. In fact, by the time he arrived in New England, the Navy had rejected–basically ignored–his application twice. ACLU lawyers in New York City were advising him and had sent him our way. When I asked what we could do to help, he said he had refused orders to ship out, leaving him without housing, so I offered our son’s yurt. This worked temporarily and gave us a chance to get to know him over dinner everyday, with my husband Kit telling stories of his Viet Nam era C. O. journey.
Meanwhile, our Ministry and Counsel members offered a clearness committee to help us all discern how best to help. By May his lawyers had scheduled a hearing at the base with the Navy’s investigating officer John Price, Mike’s parents flying in from California, a retired Navy chaplain who was supporting Mike’s application, Kit and me. Mike was now living at the St. Francis House in New London, a supportive Christian community with ties to the Episcopal church and also to the Voluntown Peace Trust, the home of the CT AFSC office for a few years and of the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) and the War Resisters League. All of these connections made Mike’s life a little easier as he waited this whole long year, wearing his uniform everyday and showing up at the base to sit at a desk and do nothing but wait…among people with whom he had very little in common anymore.
Now, as of February 16, 2011, Mike has been honorably discharged and leaves next week to drive home to California and find a new job. He has said he would like to use his nuclear weapons training to work with inspection teams, or he might decide to join a peace team. He has come a long way from the boy growing up near Camp Pendleton and, after 9/11, choosing the Naval Academy so he could serve his country like his grandfathers did. Now that the newspapers have announced his discharge, he faces a different kind of assault, that of angry voices on the local opinion pages questioning his sincerity, his honor, his manhood, his right to use his fine education in a peaceful way, to see the Light and turn around. Mike, by the way, fully accepts the responsibility to repay the substantial costs of his schooling.
At the hearing in May, I was asked many questions about Quakerism by a naval officer who uses Bible passages to prove his own positions. When I spoke of the Inner Light, he wanted to talk about Original Sin; when I spoke of Mike’s humility and mindfulness, his sincerity and sense of humor, John Price wanted to know why Mike had not asked to be a member. When he filed his report he referred to Quakers as a cult and compared me to Jim Jones. The ACLU was able to use his ignorance to win Mike’s case. More importantly, the federal judge recognized the careful and thoughtful journey from a Christian club in high school to his Hebrew studies at Johns Hopkins so that he could read the Bible in its original language and discover for himself what Jesus might think of nuclear submarines. Westerly Meeting sends Mike on his way this week with a Directory for Traveling Friends and a Letter of Introduction. No, he never became a member of our meeting, but we take that as an indication of his sincerity, and, if Friends offered an annual attendance award, Mike would have earned it. In fact, by simply sitting with us every week for an entire year, he gave us a great gift, an example of one young man’s moral courage in the Practice of our Faith.
(Transcripts of Mike’s application and Friends testimony at the hearing are available from Jane Johnson, clerk: jamcj@comcast.net)
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Reader Comments (1)
There is nothing more courageous than a person who will stand up for their believes against great odds. I hold you in the Light, Mike Izibicki. Safe journey.