This guy's a Vietnam vet.
Anthony Morris III... Did he really serve in Vietnam? Something doesn't quite add up...
by Calebs Airplane 76 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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blondie
I can't remember any article that pinpoints the date of someone's anointing in the WTS. Up until the WTS opened the earthly group in the 1930's, all members of the WTS felt they were anointed. The anointing did not take place at baptism necessarily, so baptism dates aren't a constant date.
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kurtbethel
Could this be our own "Tony the Turd" Morrison MK3?
One young man named Tony had previously served in the armed forces. After becoming a Christian, however, he concluded he could not conscientiously ‘live by the sword’ and cause harm to a fellow human. So when called upon to serve another term he declined, and a fine was imposed. Shortly thereafter he was summoned again, and this time he was given a six-month prison sentence. Yet a third time he was called and sentenced to ten months in prison. However, he appealed this sentence to a higher court. For the next two years he was in and out of court, each time preparing himself and his wife for a ten-month separation. "My wife and I said ‘good-bye’ some 13 times in two years, but each time something happened to delay the carrying out of the sentence," he commented.
In the interim, he and his wife became special pioneers, and he was granted recognition as a minister. But the law still required that he serve his ten-month sentence. Finally he received a letter offering a suspended sentence if he would plead guilty. "I told them I could not do that, since I was innocent," explained Tony. He braced himself to go to jail. To his surprise came a letter stating that the justices of the High Court had analyzed the case and had thrown it out of court on a technicality! Tony felt blessed for declining to ‘live by the sword.’
w84 3/1 pp. 13-15 Declining to ‘Live by the Sword’—A Protection
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cedars
kurtbethel - Excellent find!! Many of those details certainly fit Morris's brief life story that was printed on his appointment. It wouldn't surprise me at all if "Tony" in this article is indeed Anthony Morris, but without a friend or family member to confirm it, I guess we'll never know for sure.
Cedars
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maisha
So the way to become a GB Member is go into the military, then tell the General you need to leave cause ya found god, and then special pioneer.
The tell everyone how you suffered and went in and out of jail almost...
then you have credibility and get appointed as a GB member.
WOW I see what i did wrong now,
oH and dont forget to tell everyone you are annointed.....
Hell i know others whom recieved the annointing to, the Elders bacsically shunned them..
they were looked at VERY CLOSELY....
SO SO SAD....
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kepler
I was never a JW, but I did serve in the military in the 1960s, but not in VN. When I listened to the Morris video on neutrality and then looked at the discussion of what was the nature of his service, I did bemome interested in the question and then made a couple of inquiries myself with my own veteran's e-mail group.
Before proceeding any further with this discussion, I should say that there is fellowship as well among veterans of military service. Assuming that Mr. Morris as an 18-20 year old did service in Vietnam, from my perspective he is entitled at least to the benefit of the doubt in that regard and a hearing for whatever formative experience he might have had as a result. As crazy as the careers of the alumni of my own unit turned out to be, or conduct in chain of command, we have exercised the same welcoming attitude in gathering our kindred together after the fact. But still, I've got questions.
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On another forum, there arose a controversy (imagine that!) about the background of a Vietnam veteran who was born in 1950, served in Vietnam in 1968 to 1970 (?) and then changed to a conscientious objector. Like a lot of us sixty or older, he is a very opinionated gentleman about war and the civil order, serving on the governing board of an organization with a passive-aggressive stance, not to mention its Millerite apocalyptic views...
Anyway, his story never fully adds up. As near as his critics/sceptics can re-construct, he might have served at Long Binh as a medic, but then returned to the States after objecting to a second tour. See the attached article about "Tony" (cited above).
Now my recollection of army terms of enlistment and draft in the 1960s have faded with the decades. But when I heard people wondering about his story, I figured I needed to get my memory refreshed as well.
Could someone get two rotations into Vietnam when they were drafted into the army as described below?
If the guy was a medic, would he have been signed on longer? Three or four years? Could he have enlisted?
Would a military judicial record remain somewhere regarding Anthony Morris the 3rd that would shed more light on this?
"Kepler"
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Answer from one of my friends from service days:
From my recollections: You had a six-year committment. If you were drafted, you served two years active, two years active reserve, and two years inactive. If you volunteered, you served three years active and three inactive. If he was a draftee who became a medic, he would have had time to serve one 12-month stint after training and then might have been offered an opportunity to volunteer for a second tour. If memory serves me, one of the benefits(?) of being a draftee was that if you survived one 12-month tour, a return tour was voluntary. I think something else is at play, perhaps akin to Stolen Valor.
If he served, then there are military records on file, but they should be confidential.
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Well, this is Kepler again, summarizing.
There is some record of Morris's term in service (born in 1950, in and out supposedly from 1968-1970), but it is mostly hearsay and difficult to verify.
Was he in the service? Was he in the army or marines? Was he in Viet Nam? Was he at Long Binh? Was he a medic?
If he was any of the above, why was he asked to serve a second tour in Vietnam at penalty of prison term?
The only scenario I can think of that fits is that he volunteered for a service with a term longer than two years ( e.g., three) and rotated out of VN after a 12-month tour of duty. From what our two-man consensus is is that he was up for re-assignment, but the Vietnam assignment was optional or voluntary. It would be more likely that at the end of the tour, the individual in this situation said he wanted out - period. Everything else is more conjectural.
During the VN war period there were hosts of incidents such as the one vaguely described - and many of them I remember reading about in local papers as well as the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. While service records are largely confidential, judicial proceedings such as described could reach the light of day.
Clearly, Mr. Morris argues against war or combat, citing his personal experience. But his personal experience is not elaborated in any detail and he relies for argument on the authority of his present position. How an end to everything will allay the fear that he spoke of... well... Has he done that well allaying fear in his own house?
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kepler
Since last post, have seen Cedars' #V video in which Mr. Morris recounts his experience in the war. Whether it was generally understood in this thread or not, it is Mr. Morris who says that
1. He was a medic
2. He was at Long Binh
3. He was sent out into the field to MASH units in the (Mekong) Delta
4. There was incoming mortar fire and some shrapnel broke his footlocker (?).
5. He had hospital duties on 7:00 to 7:00 shifts
6. He was new to the field units, so new that everyone could tell from his uniform
7. He didn't like being under fire. - And I don't think anyone else did either.
So I take all that as given. I assume that Mr. Morris served as an army medic and was in the field. And that based on chronologies elsewhere, this happened between 1968 and 1970. Some of that time was basic military training, and then tech school A VN field assignment thereafter for a draftee being 1 year. If a volunteer, in a special MOS (military "something" specialty) code - And I see no indication that medic was one - then the enlistment would have been longer - because additional the government invested in the soldier additional training. The government might have wanted two years of some kind of service in the field outside of tech school in a 3 year term. Maybe that was the case, but I doubt.
In the account above
...After becoming a Christian, however, he concluded he could not conscientiously ‘live by the sword’ and cause harm to a fellow human. So when called upon to serve another term he declined, and a fine was imposed. Shortly thereafter he was summoned again, and this time he was given a six-month prison sentence. Yet a third time he was called and sentenced to ten months in prison. However, he appealed this sentence to a higher court. For the next two years he was in and out of court, each time preparing himself and his wife for a ten-month separation. "My wife and I said ‘good-bye’ some 13 times in two years, but each time something happened to delay the carrying out of the sentence," he commented.
In the interim, he and his wife became special pioneers, and he was granted recognition as a minister. But the law still required that he serve his ten-month sentence. Finally he received a letter offering a suspended sentence if he would plead guilty. "I told them I could not do that, since I was innocent," explained Tony. He braced himself to go to jail. To his surprise came a letter stating that the justices of the High Court had analyzed the case and had thrown it out of court on a technicality! Tony felt blessed for declining to ‘live by the sword.’
w84 3/1 pp. 13-15 Declining to ‘Live by the Sword’—A Protection
Mr. Morris was about 18 years old when this whole cycle started. Was he already married when he was serving in Vietnam? Since he was serving in a medical field hospital, how was he "living by the sword"? It sounds to me that it was more like living under it while performing unspecified hospital duties. And subsequently, did he serve 6-months for refusing response to ....What? Why would he be convicted a second time? Why would he not be given some sort of discharge?
Since Mr. Morris is lecturing on the illegitimacy of legal governments base on his current theocratic authority, it stands to reason that when he cites his personal experience with the follies of war that we understand all the facts.
It is also interesting to note that in 1971, within one year of release from service, Mr. Morris was "granted recognition as a minister". Now that's an interesting piece of information in itself in the context of raging judicial debates this summer of 2012.
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kepler
In continued search on this topic, I was able to uncover an official biograph with some elaboration elsewhere:
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Anthony Morris III
Born in 1950. Brother Morris entered the pioneer service in 1971 in the United States. In December of that year, he married Susan, and they continued pioneering for nearly four years until the birth of their first son, Jesse. In time, they had another son, Paul. Brother Morris reentered the full-time service in 1979 as a regular pioneer. His wife joined him when the boys entered school. The family served where the need was great in Rhode Island and North Carolina, in the United States. In North Carolina, Brother Morris served as a substitute circuit overseer, and the boys took up regular pioneer service. Jesse and Paul were invited to the United States branch at the age of 19. Meanwhile, Brother Morris began circuit work. Then, in 2002 he and Susan were invited to Bethel, starting their new assignment on August 1. Brother Morris worked in the Service Department at Patterson and later as a helper to the Service Committee of the Governing Body. Appointed to the Governing Body on August 24, 2005.
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Noted elsewhere was an inability to verify that an Anthony Morris III served in VN as a medic at Long Binh; nor, subsequently, that a military courts martial commenced over the issues of serving in that capacity.
It was noted, however:
"A Bethelite has claimed that Morris, Jackson and Pierce became known in Brooklyn's Bethel headquarters as a trinity of three Commanders acting as collective bosses after the death in 2010 of Ted Jaracz."
Since it is noted elsewhere as well that Mr. Morris is of Italian descent, it is possible that Anthony's surname at birth or enlistment was NOT Morris and that any records in the 2000 or so courts martial in FY 1970 were recorded as a proceeding of the United States vs. Tony Mxxxx - or perhaps a last name that begins with a different letter. If it is as recorded in the Awake article above, the name might be repeated within a year or two in legal records. However, it makes no sense that he could be convicted twice for not following the same order. Something else must have occurred.
Since the biographical information also omits the maiden name of Mrs. Susan Morris, one can only conclude that there is a deliberate effort to obscure the background of this member of the governing board. Mr. Morris is clearly not associated with any institutions of higher learning or professional organizations. His personal signature appears on little or no written correspondence and his speech and audio records appear to be brief save for admonitions to prepare for Armageddon. ... His name appears nowhere in the 2011 Yearbook.
There appears to be no one on Earth beside the other members of the board that can give him any vetting.
As a matter of corporate governance and oversight, this is an example of a hi-jacking undertaken in plain sight. Unless there is forth-coming information from co-workers in Rhode Island or North Carolina who had worked with him, evidently people, either born in the movement or who have just left, genuinely have no clue who this individual is!
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kurtbethel
In my more cynical moments, I start wondering if some or all of these governing body members are paid actors, standing in to pretend they are a governing body, but with a manufactured history that can not be proven or disproven.
It could be telling to get a JW to prove that Tony is who he says he is. It is important to know who is taking the lead, if one is going to follow. So who is he? Where is the paper trail? Where are the actual witnesses of the parts of his life that he claims he experienced?
Where is the freakin birth certificate and school transcripts and passport?