////My old Dad was a very hard fellow. In his view all who fought in WW2 were laudable; the brave were heroes; all the rest were despicable cowards. The Fire Watch, Ambulance Drivers etc were usually too old or young to fight. Some were conscientious objectors, but he had no time for them. We had long arguments about it, but we never found any common ground!////

I'm more with your father as far as WW2 goes. There was no room for conscientious objectors there because you had some power-mongers working in collusion to engulf Europe, Asia and America is a war where it is victor takes all. A war like Vietnam was different. There wasn't the same urgency.

Also, I suspect that many of the conshies from WW2 never told anybody 20 years down the road that they were conshies. You can bet at least some, if not most, were telling people, "Oh, yeah, I was up there on the front lines fighting for my life!" Count on it.