Many men applying to their local Tribunals for exemption on the grounds of Conscientious Objection believed that the role of the Tribunal was to support their application to where they felt they could be most useful. For many COs, including John Cave, a civil servant living in Carshalton when conscripted in 1916, this meant making clear that while they would not be soldiers, they were prepared to do medical work in order to save, rather than destroy, lives during the war. Accordingly, John appeared before the Carshalton Tribunal on the 6th of March 1916, stating that though a Conscientious Objector who would take no part in killing, he was prepared and indeed willing to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC).

Unfortunately for John, however the Carshalton Tribunal may have taken this sentiment, it was ultimately fruitless. Despite the popular image of Conscientious Objectors being stretcher-bearers, very few COs were accepted into the RAMC, and Tribunals took the well meaning intention to do medical work as a general sign that any non-combatant work was acceptable. While John was granted Exemption from Combatant Service, nominally to join the medical services, instead he was drafted into the Non-Combatant Corps (NCC), a branch of the Army set up to put COs to work on logistical and labour support for the military. NCC work was non-combatant, meaning that COs in the corps could not be ordered to use or handle weaponry, but the work itself was a far cry from the life saving task of the RAMC. NCC men were expected to do menial and difficult tasks that were not worth using men who could fight on. They were officially part of the army, following orders and wearing uniform, a compromise that many Conscientious Objectors found difficult to accept. John appears to have accepted the rules and regulations of military life with the NCC, and served as a non-combatant soldier from December 1916, likely until demobilisation in 1919 or early 1920.