E-mail Message to Senator McCain

To The Honorable Senator McCain,

My name is John Goldthwaite. I am a native of Arizona currently serving in the Army stationed at Ft Drum, NY. In May of 1996 I submitted an application through my chain of command requesting that I be recognized as a conscientious objector and discharged from the Army.

I am sending you this e-mail out of frustration at the slow progress of my packet. I have placed on my web page a rough chronological summary of the events and most of the essential statements and reports included in my packet.

As you may know, there are two types of conscientious objector, those who wish merely not to participate in combat and those who wish to be discharged from the service. My application was for the later. It was approved by the Department of the Army on the 6th of December 1996.

I expected to be discharged shortly after receiving this news, however, I discovered that the actual discharge is an entirely separate process which must be forwarded again to the Department of the Army for approval.

The necessity of this redundancy in approving my discharge is frustrating, discouraging and bewildering. In addition to this redundancy, it seems that the packet is spending an inordinate amount of time at each level in the chain of command from my company to the Department of the Army and back.

I have been unable to perform my job in the military and unwilling to contribute to the effectiveness of the military in any other way. The sooner this process can be brought to a conclusion, the more money the Army can save and the sooner I can get on with my life back in Arizona.

I hope there is something you can do to help speed up this process and I thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sincerely,

John Goldthwaite
SPC
SSN (withheld)
C Co. 2-10 AVN REGT #146
Ft. Drum, NY 13602
Home: (315)773-6219
Work: (315)772-7974
e-mail: desertrat@hotmail.com
Web Page: http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/6181