Missions over Military

The following Associated Press article appeared in the November 26, 2005 edition of the Daily Herald , a Provo, Utah newspaper:

LDS Men choose Missions over Military

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah has among the nation's lowest military recruitment rates because many of its young men fulfill proselytizing missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints.

Utah was ranked 47th among states in per capita military recruitment of 18- to 24-year-olds by the National Priorities Project, a Northampton, Mass., organization that seeks to influence federal budgets to promote social and economic justice.

The figures, for the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2004, included all military branches except for the Marine Corps, which couldn't provide enough information on the locations of its recruits.

The LDS church encourages men ages 19 and over who belong to the church to serve a two-year mission in another state or nation, making them unavailable for for two years to join the Army, Navy or Air Force, said Anita Dancs, a National Priorities Project research director.

The survey, however, found that Utah men who opt for the military tend to come from wealthier families, in contrast to the nearly two-thirds of recruits nationwide who hail from counties with household incomes below the national median.

"On the whole we can say that young people with limited opportunities are far more likely to be recruited into the military," says Dancs. "There's far less of that in Utah."

The survey didn't include Marine Corps because of research problems, but found that other military branches signed up 1,130 Utah youths last year.

That gave Utah a recruitment rate of 3.6 for every 1,000 adults aged 18 to 24 -- nearly a third less than the national average of 5.2 recruits per 1,000. Montana had the highest rate at 8.1 per 1,000.

Retired Maj. Dennis Gurr, manager for the Army's Salt Lake Recruiting Company, said the Army can accommodate men who want to serve a church mission by allowing a two-year leave, and recruiters promote that option.

"There's a lot of those who go on missions that we'd love to have in the Army 'cause they're good kids," Gurr said.

Church spokesman Dale Bills said a third of the nation's 36,000 Latter-day Saints serving in active duty, reserves or National Guard units, first completed a church mission.

If the National Priorities Project counted military recruits older than 24, Utah's standing might have risen, said Pam Perlich, a senior research economist at the University of Utah's Bureau of Business and Economic Research.

The survey showed that Weber County has Utah's largest recruitment rate, probably because of its proximity to Hill Air Force Base.

Uintah County, which is experiencing an energy boom and plentiful oil-field jobs, had the state's lowest recruitment rate.

MESJ suggests reading the more than 900 comments that the Daily Herald received.


This article simply demonstrated that young LDS men prefer missions over the military, and MESJ wholeheartedly welcomes that sense of prioritiy. There are of course, besides missions or militairy, other alternatives available that are being chosen:

Where young women choose to go on a mission or choose to stay home or finish their education, there are also young men who take that same approach, but are sometimes stigmatized because of it by their environment.

Some young men and women have decided to start a family at a very young age, and are serving the mission of their lifetime, taking care of each other and their children.

There are a number of organisations that offer alternative 'missions' like the Peace Corps, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Sojourners Internships, and indeed many members of MESJ feel they're on a social justice mission!

And last but not least, there are those that are 'conscientious objectors' or 'war resisters' to militairy service, taking the call to 'renounce war' literally, an area that remains largely unexplored in our communities. In an increasingly international church we'll find young Latter-day Saints all around the world facing dilemma's like what to do when drafted or coerced into the militairy by ruthless dictators who inevitably prove to be war criminals, or by manipulative politicians who simply lie about their motives. It thus becomes literally a matter of life and death for young Latter-day Saints to be well-informed participants in society as president Gordon B. Hinckey suggested.

Unfortunately also, far too often the militairy option is considered because of a perceived or real lack of other options, perhaps as a way out of poverty, a way to get an education, a lack of self-confidence or a need for discipline, all avoiding the moral issue that should be addressed, the one that demands from us to 'renounce war'.

Renouncing war, often becomes just a way of saying 'war is not nice', rather than saying a resolute no. We come up with endless rationalizations that in effect cause us to embrace rather than renounce war. War becomes commonplace instead of the extreme exception.The social-political systems that have us in their grip have seduced and reduced us to their violence, and we have surrendered. One only has to consider the amount of violence we allow to come into our living rooms, our obsession for weapons, and our willingness to support political leaders that are responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in the name of freedom.

However, every once in a while, prophetic voices break through the political correctness, pointing their finger to us like the prophet Nathan to King David, accusing us of perverting the ways of the lord...

President Spencer W. Kimball:
"We are a warlike people...When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel--ships, planes, missiles, fortifications--and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching: "Love your enemies..."
(Spencer W. Kimball, "The False Gods We Worship," Ensign (June 1976): 4.)

2006 -by Robert Poort