Organizations assisting military personnel report their heaviest conscientious-objector caseloads in decades, but the Pentagon has not released the figures needed to determine how many service members have formally applied or been discharged.
Military legal-aid and counseling organizations are reporting an extraordinary increase in service members seeking conscientious-objector status as the United States’ war with Iran enters its seventh month.
The Center on Conscience and War, a nonprofit that assists members of the armed forces with conscientious-objector applications, says demand for its services has risen to approximately six times its normal rate since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28.
The organization is currently working with approximately 140 applicants, according to figures its executive director, Mike Prysner, provided to MS NOW. Prysner described it as the center’s highest application rate in 25 years.
The increase is not confined to young or inexperienced service members. The applicants reportedly include officers up to the rank of major, service-academy graduates and personnel who have served for more than a decade.
Another military counseling organization is reporting a similar increase.
Quaker House, which helps operate the GI Rights Hotline, reportedly received 429 inquiries concerning conscientious objection in March and another 440 in April. The organization is assisting approximately 30 applicants, compared with the five to 10 cases it ordinarily handles at one time.
Earlier reporting by NPR found that the hotline’s overall call volume more than doubled after the war began. Counselors described receiving calls from service members facing deployments within days—or even the following morning—who wanted to place their objections on the record.
The reported increase reflects inquiries and cases handled by independent organizations, however, not a verified Pentagon count of formal applications.
Ethical concerns, not fear of deployment
Counselors assisting the service members say the calls are generally not driven by fear of combat or personal danger.
Instead, applicants are raising moral and legal concerns about civilian casualties, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the absence of a clear end to the conflict and the possibility that they could be ordered to participate in conduct they consider unlawful.
The bombing of a girls’ school in Minab during the opening phase of the Iran war was repeatedly identified as a turning point by service members interviewed or described in earlier reporting.
Military unease did not begin with Operation Epic Fury. Counselors say some service members had already begun questioning their participation because of U.S. support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, military activity in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and the domestic deployment of military personnel.
The Iran war appears to have accelerated that trend.
One Army career counselor interviewed by NPR said that, during five years working in military retention, the counselor had never previously encountered a conscientious-objector packet. By 2025, the counselor had received several inquiries and had to learn the application process.
Objection to one war is not enough
Obtaining conscientious-objector status is considerably more difficult than refusing deployment or declaring opposition to a particular military campaign.
Under Department of Defense Instruction 1300.06, an applicant must establish a sincere moral, ethical or religious opposition to participation in “war in any form.”
Political disagreement, opposition to one particular conflict or a desire to avoid dangerous or undesirable duty does not, by itself, satisfy the standard.
Pentagon policy recognizes two principal classifications. A Class 1-O conscientious objector opposes both combatant and noncombatant military service and may be discharged if approved. A Class 1-A-O objector opposes combatant service but may remain in the military performing noncombatant duties.
Applicants must provide a detailed written account of how their beliefs developed and how those beliefs affect their lives. The process normally includes interviews with a military chaplain and a mental-health professional, an investigation, an informal hearing and recommendations moving through the applicant’s chain of command.
Applying does not permit a service member to disregard lawful orders, abandon a unit or stop performing assigned duties. Applicants remain subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice while their cases are pending.
Commanders are expected, when practicable, to assign applicants duties that create the least conflict with their stated beliefs. That does not necessarily prevent deployment. Pentagon policy considers some service aboard armed ships, aircraft or within a combat zone to be noncombatant duty when the person is not directly involved in operating weapons.
Official numbers remain unavailable
The most important national figures have not been made public.
The Pentagon has not disclosed how many conscientious-objector applications have been formally initiated, submitted, approved, denied, withdrawn or left pending during 2025 and 2026. It has also not released current totals broken down by military branch, rank, length of service or connection to Operation Epic Fury.
That makes it impossible to independently confirm that formal applications across the armed forces have increased sixfold.
It is essential to distinguish among hotline inquiries, clients receiving assistance, applications submitted to commands and cases ultimately approved. One person may contact several organizations without filing an application. Others may begin preparing a case but withdraw it before it reaches service headquarters.
The lack of current public data is not new.
A 2007 Government Accountability Office review found that the Defense Manpower Data Center tracked separations attributed to conscientious objection but did not maintain a central database of applications. Each military component kept its own figures, and applications withdrawn before reaching headquarters could be omitted.
The GAO counted 425 applications across active-duty and reserve components from 2002 through 2006—an average of 85 per year during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of those applications, 224 were approved, 188 were denied and 13 remained pending, were withdrawn or had another disposition.
The military took an average of approximately seven months to process each application.
Those historical figures demonstrate why 140 active clients at one outside organization would be notable. They cannot, however, be compared directly. The GAO counted formal applications reported by military components, while the current figure represents people receiving assistance from a nonprofit.
A potential warning about force morale
Even if only a portion of the inquiries become formal applications, the volume reported by military counseling organizations may indicate a deeper problem involving morale, confidence in leadership and service members’ willingness to participate in the administration’s expanding military operations.
The development comes as the Navy faces extended deployments, equipment and supply pressures, and a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall connected to the Iran war. Those conditions do not establish that the same personnel are seeking conscientious-objector status, but they form part of the broader strain being placed on the force.
The most consequential questions remain unanswered: Which military branches are receiving the applications? How many involve experienced personnel? How many have delayed deployments or required reassignment? Are approval rates changing? And has the Pentagon evaluated the increase as a readiness or retention problem?
Answering those questions will require records from each military service and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
Until those records are released, the available evidence supports a narrower but still significant conclusion: organizations that advise troubled service members are confronting a surge unlike anything they have experienced in decades, and many of those service members say the Iran war has forced them to reconsider whether they can morally continue serving.
Sources & Editorial Note
This article is based primarily on reports from military legal-aid and counseling organizations. The reported sixfold increase reflects the Center on Conscience and War’s caseload, not an official Pentagon count of formal conscientious-objector applications. No current Department of Defense data reviewed for this article establishes how many service members have formally applied, been approved, been denied or received discharges since Operation Epic Fury began.
The Center on Conscience and War’s reported caseload, the backgrounds of its approximately 140 clients, and Quaker House’s March and April inquiry figures were reported by MS NOW and summarized by The Daily Beast. Earlier accounts of increased hotline traffic, applicants facing imminent deployment and service members’ stated ethical concerns come from NPR’s reporting published by KPBS.
Descriptions of the eligibility standard and application process are based on Department of Defense Instruction 1300.06. Pentagon policy requires sincere moral, ethical or religious opposition to participation in war in any form. Opposition to the Iran war alone does not qualify a service member for conscientious-objector status.
Historical application totals, approval rates and processing times are drawn from the Government Accountability Office’s 2007 review. Those figures are included for context but are not directly comparable to current nonprofit caseloads or hotline inquiries.
The article distinguishes inquiries, assisted clients, formal applications and approved discharges. Because the Pentagon has not released current service-by-service application data, the scale of the reported increase cannot yet be independently verified.
