At one point my technical interviewer (and soon-to-be supervisor), Jerry, looked me square in the eye and said, "You realize you'll be making parts that kill people, right?"
To this day it still bothers me that I took the job, but I really needed it at the time so I justified it out: someone else would make them anyway, and besides, I wasn't the guy giving the orders.
There was a news report a while back that a Hellfire missile had been used to kill some number of people in Afghanistan. It's likely, given the timeframes involved, that I made sure that at least one of the parts on that particular missile functioned correctly.
But, why is it considered professional to work towards something you're against? I'm not saying throw a tantrum or shout at people about your views, but you certainly shouldn't be applauded with professionalism for going against your own political views to make a buck.
I certainly understand that many of us have to suck it up at times in order to pay the rent. But I don't consider that a positive thing.
Life is complicated. I don't say that to somehow absolve me of responsibility, but rather because I feel that hardline extreme stances are generally counterproductive and don't really reflect the complex nature of issues.
For example, a military contractor could have a personal view of not supporting, say, the Iraq war. This does not mean that said person thinks that all military spending is bad.
I view it as akin to police protecting a perpetrator from others. They may hate the guy, hate what he's done, but it's still their duty to protect him.
I just wasn't fond of the wording. Seemed to say that under the guise of professionalism we're all justified in going against our morals. It's that contradictory mentality you see in business where you run a tobacco company by day and go home to hug your kids at night. To pay the bills? Those would have to be some pretty serious bills... Probably not the way you meant the statement, and just the way I read it ;)
There's so much interconnectedness that you sort of have to essentially pick how close you're willing to get to something you don't agree with. It's pretty difficult to have nothing to do with X for most values of X.
Here's a awkward chart of protected classes by state: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/rpt/2003-R-0641.htm
I recently went through this (not military related) - working on something I had conflicts with. I did it for a few months and then, for the first time in my career, one morning I really did not want to go to work. I sat and stared at the wall for 10 minutes wondering if I should go or not.
This is probably the reason they ask.
I'm not sure exactly what the rules are on this (in the UK). I know that officially you're not allowed to discriminate on grounds of sex, race and age but I'm not sure about political views.
The rest of the interview, which was about the technical details, was quite congenial but I knew from the initial question that I wasn't going to get the job. If I had known that the job was primarily military and involved with the Afghan war I wouldn't even have bothered to apply, but the company's web site didn't make this clear and showed only civilian/industrial applications. In this case a phone based rather than face to face initial interview would have saved time and expense for all those concerned.