Dale E. Noyd, Air Force captain and Vietnam War foe, dies at age 73

Dale E. Noyd, who as a decorated Air Force captain and fighter pilot attracted worldwide attention in the 1960s as a conscientious objector who objected to only one war, the one in Vietnam, died Jan. 11 in Seattle. He was 73.

The cause was complications of emphysema, his son, Erik, said.

Mr. Noyd seemed the model serviceman. He was the only member of the 1955 Reserve Officers Training Corps class at Washington State University to be offered a regular, not a reserve, commission. He received a medal for successfully landing a damaged nuclear-armed F-100 fighter at an English airfield. He taught at the Air Force Academy.

But after 11 years in the Air Force, he became deeply disturbed by the Vietnam War, which he regarded as immoral and illegal.

In 1966, he wrote an eight-page, single-spaced letter to the Air Force asking that he either be allowed to resign his commission or be classified a conscientious objector.

Denied on both counts, Mr. Noyd took his case to federal court in Denver in March 1967, saying he was motivated by humanist beliefs.

Specific war cited

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented him, said it was the first lawsuit claiming conscientious-objector status based on opposition to a specific war. In December 1967, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, saying it belonged in military jurisdiction.

At roughly the same time, the Air Force ordered Mr. Noyd to train a pilot who was likely to be assigned to Vietnam. Mr. Noyd refused and was court-martialed for disobeying orders.

His military trial, before a panel of 10 officers, was significant, in part, for what it did not address: the captain's assertions that the war was immoral and illegal, as well as the basis of his professed humanism.

The central issue of whether his objecting to a particular war, rather than all wars, was valid was also ruled out as a matter for the court.

Risking one's life

The panel did allow discussion of how Mr. Noyd's humanist beliefs affected his character. In the trial's sentencing phase, a theologian told the judges, all Vietnam veterans, that risking one's life for a belief, as the officers had all done in battle, was a religious act.

That was persuasive. The prosecutor summarized this view as "two religions butting heads against each other."

As a result, Mr. Noyd was sentenced March 9, 1968, to a year in prison instead of the five years he could have received. He was given a dishonorable discharge and stripped of his pension and benefits.

Born in Wenatchee

Dale Edwin Noyd was born in Wenatchee on May 1, 1933. Mr. Noyd was twice divorced. In addition to his son, of Kirkland, he is survived by his daughter, Heather Taylor, of Vancouver, Wash.; his brother, Gus, of Wenatchee, and five grandchildren.

His superior ROTC record gave him the privilege of choosing his first base, at Woodbridge, England.

In the resignation letter preceding his suit, he wrote, "My three-year assignment in an operational fighter squadron -- with the attendant capacity for inflicting terrible killing and destruction -- was based on the personal premise that I was serving a useful deterrent purpose and that I would never be used as an instrument of aggression."

What changed Mr. Noyd's world view were three years he spent at the University of Michigan doing graduate work in psychology. The Air Force paid his tuition in return for six more years of service.

The Air Force sent him to teach psychology at the Air Force Academy. He assigned readings of French existentialists and tried to encourage a liberal-arts atmosphere.

In January of 1969 the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of his case.

He went on to teach at Earlham College in Indiana for two decades.

"He was, I daresay, the single most influential man in my life. I was his student at Earlham, where he offered me a stunning education about psychology, and about life," wrote former student Chris Scribner in an e-mail to Erik Noyd. "I am now a psychology professor myself, and each time I step into a classroom, I summon up recollections and images of Dale, and seek to emulate his excellence and zeal as a teacher, as a thinker, as a man."

In the late 1980s, he built a boat and sailed it to Tahiti. He lived in Hawaii before coming home to Washington state when his health began to fail.

Mr. Noyd kept two certificates on the wall of his study, his son said. One was his commendation for heroism, the other his dishonorable discharge.