It was wartime in the 1940s. The first peacetime draft in the history of the United States had taken place in 1940. Amid extraordinary patriotism in the United States, often demonstrated by young men enlisting in the military to serve their country, there was scattered opposition to selective service. Indeed, a few hundred men had claimed the right to refuse to perform military service. These men, known as Conscientious Objectors (COs) and self-proclaimed human guinea pigs, served the country in other ways that contributed a great deal to our knowledge of everything from treatment for typhus and hepatitis to acute pneumonia and malaria.