Military Objectors Face an Uphill Battle : War: In an age of voluntary enlistment, ridicule and skepticism dog those who seek to prove they’ve undergone a change of heart.

When Marine Cpl. Kenneth Turner applied for conscientious objector status late last month at Camp Pendleton, the 22-year-old joined a growing number of soldiers whose anti-war convictions are adding new wrinkles to an age-old moral debate about war.

As volunteer soldiers, these men and women cannot easily assert--as did some Vietnam War-era draftees--a lifelong moral opposition to armed conflict. Furthermore, for would-be conscientious objectors who filed their applications since Operation Desert Shield began, the timing of their requests has prompted considerable skepticism about their motivation.

“There’s been ridicule here and there,” Turner said in an interview Monday, discussing his peers’ reaction to his claim, filed Oct. 30, that a spiritual “reawakening” had crystallized his anti-war convictions. “More or less it’s, ‘You signed the papers. . . . You’re just doing it to get out’ ” of going to the Persian Gulf, he said.

Jeffrey A. Paterson, a 22-year-old Marine based in Hawaii who was the first to make his CO application public, has been the target of similar criticism. Last month, at a Washington protest against U.S. presence in the Middle East, a counterdemonstrator held this handmade sign: “Why did Jeff Paterson join the Marines? To surf? Or the free paycheck?”

Do all volunteer soldiers wrestle with their consciences before signing enlistment papers? Mark Lamanna, a military counselor with the Central Committee for Conscientious Objection who has helped Turner prepare his application, says no. With the threat of war seemingly remote, Lamanna believes that many peacetime volunteers think more about the promise of steady employment than about the duty of killing.

“The question comes up: ‘How can there be COs if it’s an all-volunteer force?’ ” said Lamanna, who received an honorable discharge from the Navy as a CO in 1987. But he says military training prompts some soldiers to search their souls for the first time. Some of them find deeply held beliefs that run completely contrary to the duties they’ve pledged to perform, he said. “It’s a spiritual evolution, a development.”

Proving the earnestness of such a change of heart is the goal of any CO applicant, and the process by which that sincerity is evaluated has not changed since the 1970s, when the military was swamped with thousands of applications each year.

Vietnam-era draftees, for example, were informed before they began service that they had the right to seek CO status. If they waived that right initially and later filed CO claims, they too had to explain how their religious, moral or ethical beliefs had become incompatible with military service.

“It has always been the case that, in order to qualify as a CO on active duty, you had to show that you were not a CO at the time of your enlistment and were not morally opposed to killing--and that your beliefs basically changed,” said Kathy Gilberd, co-chairwoman of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild in San Diego.

For Turner, that evolution began when he participated in advanced infantry training this summer, the soldier said Monday. Months before Operation Desert Shield became a household word, he said, going through the motions of mock war exercises made him realize he could be responsible for taking the lives of others and, as a squad leader, for leading other men to their deaths.

Yes, he had enlisted of his own free will, he said. But something had changed--for the first time, he says, he knew he could not kill.

“It’s unfortunate that (Turner) was in the military when he came to the realization that he cannot support war,” Lamanna said. But, he added, such cases are not unusual. “Until you have had the experience of being asked to kill somebody, you can’t really understand what it feels like. Spiritually, you can’t feel it until you face it.”

Bill Smith, a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in military law, said many of his clients describe the same kind of evolutionary process. During the past 25 years, Smith has represented hundreds of CO applicants, he said. But the past few weeks have brought a surge of calls--up to six a day, contrasted with his usual one or two a month.

Longtime clients and many recent callers say the same thing, Smith said: that news reports about conflicts abroad have caused them to reexamine their own motivations.

Smith helped a Navy ROTC cadet at UCLA file his CO claim in February, for example, well before Iraq invaded Kuwait.

“In his case, he simply had read news articles about the use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq war--even before the invasion occurred,” said Smith, whose client has dropped out of the ROTC program while his case is pending. “He was just horrified by the whole prospect of what warfare was. He just decided he couldn’t participate in the military anymore.”

A nurse represented by Smith joined the Army Reserves one week before the invasion of Kuwait. As a Jewish woman, the 2nd lieutenant has serious concerns about being sent to an Islamic country, Smith said. She has filed a CO application, but has not yet received a hearing.

On Tuesday, Smith had a call from a California National Guardsman. Soon after the guardsman joined, he told Smith, he decided it was a mistake. But Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait brought his abhorrence of militarism into focus, he said. With Smith’s help, he now wants to submit his CO package.

That guardsman, like Turner, has a tough road ahead of him, Smith said. Even if a soldier has long-held the beliefs that form the basis for his claim, Smith said, to some observers “it looks very much as though it’s being done for other than pure motives, to avoid service in Saudi Arabia.”

Military regulations specify that expediency, or the avoidance of military service, is not enough to support a CO claim. Instead, applicants must prove that they have a sincere, strongly held belief that is inconsistent with military service.

Turner says his case meets these criteria, and that he believes his claim merits an honorable discharge. However, he says he is prepared to disobey a direct order--risking possible court-martial or a dishonorable discharge--if his superiors command him to join his unit in deploying to the gulf.

On Tuesday night, Turner was being held at Camp Pendleton with a portion of his unit, military officials said. Earlier in the day, the rest of his unit--an undisclosed number of soldiers--were bused to San Diego to board ships bound for the Persian Gulf, said Capt. Rose-Ann Sgrignoli, a spokeswoman for the camp.

Late Tuesday, Sgrignoli said, Turner’s convictions had not yet been tested.

“A Marine is an active-duty Marine and is expected to carry out his commander’s orders,” she said. “Just because a Marine applies to be a CO doesn’t mean he is one. He is still a combat Marine until Headquarters Marine Corps changes his status.”

“His opportunity to deploy will be in the next few days. Anything that he said he is going to do is only what he said he is going to do,” Sgrignoli said. “At this time, he has not disobeyed any orders.”