Biography
Jesse D. Hartzler was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Missouri who was drafted and arrived at Camp MacArthur, Texas, on September 7, 1918. Refusing on religious grounds to wear the uniform or to obey military orders, he was subjected to a mock trial, beaten, and put on a bread-and-water diet, though he also recalled sympathy and kindness from some of the soldiers and officers. Court-martialed in November 1918, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor and sent to the Fort Leavenworth disciplinary barracks; he was released on January 7, 1919, after the Armistice. He recounted the experience in a taped interview with Roger Golden on December 6, 1968, preserved in the Mennonite Central Committee's Civilian Public Service oral-history archive.
