The Iran war’s first month saw a 1,000% increase in American troops applying for conscientious objector (CO) status.

Service members who manage to secure CO status are either honorably discharged or assigned to “noncombatant duties.” But the process is notoriously burdensome and invasive.

Applicants must write a series of essays explaining their moral convictions about war. Next comes an intensive investigation by a commissioned officer—ranking captain or above—hand-picked by their commander. As part of this investigation, applicants are subjected to mandatory, often hostile, interviews with military psychologists and chaplains.

Trying to become a CO is an individual solution that cannot hope to end imperialist war. Nevertheless, the growing number of troops submitting to this grueling process is just one indication of plummeting morale in the US military.

“I think it was the most angry I’ve ever felt,” one airman told NPR after the murder of 156 civilians—mostly schoolchildren—in the US missile attack on Minab elementary school. “I wanted nothing more than to just leave and wash my hands of that place and just be done.”

Another reservist summarized a widespread sentiment among active-duty troops: “We do not want to die for Israel—we don’t want to be political pawns.”

Alongside imperialist massacres, the banal facts of military life are also eroding morale. A viral image of the meager rations served aboard the USS Tripoli shows two nearly empty trays with a small dollop of brown mystery meat and a single flour tortilla. Another meal, served on the USS Abraham Lincoln, features a small serving of boiled carrots and a slab of gray Spam next to something that resembles dried cat vomit.

Crew members sent these pictures to their families back home, who were appalled. But their attempts to send care packages have been blocked by the suspension of deliveries to the Middle East. Anyone familiar with the film Battleship Potemkin knows the dangers of providing poor food to sailors.

Meanwhile, the USS Gerald Ford has become the poster child for the Navy’s dysfunction. The ship’s 326-day deployment was the longest for a carrier strike group since the end of the Cold War, and the third longest of all time.

The carrier cost no less than $13 billion to build, yet its vacuum-based plumbing system is incapable of handling even commercial-grade toilet paper. This has led to dozens of clogs over the last year alone, and ten “acid flushes” of the entire system since 2023—at a cost of $400,000 per flush. In addition, a March 12 laundry fire aboard the Gerald Ford destroyed 100 beds and displaced nearly 600 sailors.

Some have questioned whether these incidents are due to natural strain on the carrier’s systems or acts of sabotage. At present, there is not enough evidence to say definitively.

According to NPR, strange items, including t-shirts and rope, have been found in the pipes during declogging. Whether or not the fires and clogs are acts of sabotage, they are either the effect or the cause of discontent and declining morale.

Nosediving morale among active-duty personnel reflects the general decline of capitalist institutions. In the coming years, economic crises and class battles will only further erode the willingness of young men and women to kill and die for the ruling class.