Stephen Funk: Supporting A Marine CO/Resister

Steve Collier is a San Francisco attorney, who called Quaker House in September about Marine private Stephen Funk. Funk is the most visible CO/resister in this new war, and openly gay. After going public as a CO , he went AWOL in California, spoke to several peace rallies, then turned himself in. Collier said Funk had just been court martialed, and was being sent to the brig at Camp Lejeune to serve six months. (Find more background about his case here and here.)

Funk’s court-martial was meant to make an example of him. The warning to potential resisters was clear: This is what happens if you go public, go AWOL for six weeks and speak to antiwar rallies. You get charged with desertion –which could mean execution in wartime–and even if we can’t make it stick, we’ll lock you up a continent away from your family and friends for as long as we can.

The Marine Corps thought they had Stephen Funk right where they wanted him: alone and isolated, a vivid example of the bleak and lonely fate awaiting anyone who would openly defy military authority.

Steve Collier feared that thus isolated, Funk was at risk. Would we, he asked, "take him under our care"?

Camp Lejeune is a hundred miles away. But the nearest GI counselors other than Quaker House are 400 miles north in Washington DC, and the Bay Area is a lot farther. It didn’t take long to say yes.

So Stephen Funk has not been to Quaker House yet. Instead, we’ve gone to him: organizing visits, letter-writing, and other support and advocacy as way opens. Quakers and others have been very responsive to the call. We’ll keep at it til his sentence is done, early next year, then help him get back home. And get ready for the next one like him.

But it hasn't worked out quite the way the Marine brass planned. Sure, Funk is locked up. But he hasn't been alone, or isolated. His example is not one of defeat or failure.

Instead, so far it's a model of resistance and support: he's been visited almost every weekend since he got to Carolina. Hundreds of letters have poured in, from many countries. Even a few books have gotten through the brig's obstructive procedures to provide some diversion.

He is slated to be released in early February, and plans to return to the west coast to resume his education. We'll wish him well, and get ready for the next prisoner of conscience who need support and is within our reach. When he (or she) arrives, we'll ask for your help again.

Matthew 25: 36: "For I was in prison and you came to me."

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The banner below was one of many hung on roadside fences near Camp Lejeune.