As a 1-AO conscientious objector, Collegedale, Illinois resident William Twombly served his country alongside caged guinea pigs in the Utah desert, where he and a dozen fellow non-combatant soldiers — with their own complement of guinea pigs — were exposed to Q fever as part of the U.S. Army's Operation Whitecoat.

Drafted in December 1954 and discharged in December of 1956, the then-21-year-old Twombly was among more than 2,300 conscientious objectors who participated in Operation Whitecoat between 1954 and 1973, many of them Seventh-day Adventists like Twombly.

His objections stemmed from his religious beliefs, but duty to his country mattered, too.