I submitted the following in response to an article in Friends Journal (February, 2010) asking how can we support the troops without also supporting the war. (more…)
January 26, 2010
November 3, 2009
Conscientious Objectors, Truman, and true bravery.
May 17, 1948
“I’ll admit that it is rather difficult for me to look upon a conscientious objector with patience…While your four sons and my three nephews were risking their lives to save our government, and the things for which we stand, these people were virtually shooting them in the back. I ran across one conscientious objector (Desmond Doss) that I really believe is all man…I decorated him with a Congressional Medal of Honor….the majority with whom I came in contact were just plain cowards and shirkers.”
(from Eleanor and Harry, The Correspondence. 2002)
This letter was addressed to Eleanor Roosevelt in response to her request that he reconsider pardons for COs. Letter was saved but not sent, and he later mailed Eleanor a copy of the Attorney General’s statement regarding the report in question, including a personal note that there would be no review because the report was complete and he approved it
Doss was generally reviled during most of his military service as a medic because of his religious conscientious objection to killing. Even though there is absolutely no evidence that he ever failed to pursue his duties, he was generally considered cowardly simply on the basis of his anti-war beliefs. When he happened to be assigned a position of great danger and responded bravely, he became the public “exception.” Had his assignments kept him shipboard, he would surely have remained one of Truman’s assumed cowards.
It could be said that to hold to your principles when the world is against you is what requires the greatest bravery.
October 8, 2009
Pacifist Realism and Pacifism
Pacifist Realism holds that unless there is radical change in our understanding of, and dependence on, war in our modern technologically-advanced world, there will be wars of ever increasing severity, resulting in our eventual extinction. Pacifism is a conscientious and practical response to this threat. Removing this threat of suffering and extinction does not require that the world become pacifistic, but realistic pacifism can lead the way toward the consideration and adoption of other more accessible methods of establishing peaceful relationships.
Pacifism is the refusal, for reasons of conscience, to participate in war.
October 6, 2009
My response to The R.O.T.C. Dilemma (New York Times 10/26/09)
The following is a copy of my post on the Times website in response to R.O.T.C. Dilemma:
This article is heavily biased and in some cases badly misinformed. Please go back to some original sources of the period (not other newspaper articles). Most significantly, R.O.T.C. was never “banned” on most campuses in the 60’s. The requirement was that if R.O.T.C. was to give grades and academic credit, it must function under the academic regulations that applied to all the other academic programs of the University. Their alternative was to continue as they had been doing, but not for academic credit. This the military adamantly refused. They are a law unto themselves in higher education, and this is what we must question. My heartfelt concern is insuring educational integrity. Note that one cadet says “I have no personal opinion,” in response to a question about R.O.T.C., and the article’s author confirms that cadets are not free to express an opinion. Do we believe that this accords with the true purpose of a University education and is something we should encourage?
p.s. In my experience the folks I knew well in R.O.T.C. were fine individuals and had “chosen” to enter R.O.T.C. because they needed the scholarship money. Is this a good basis for a volunteer army? And what does it say about the value we place on education in this country?
August 15, 2009
Homesteading musings
I was looking at my dog-eared copies of Living the Good Life (Helen and Scott Nearing) and The Complete Homesteading Book. And thinking “what ifs.” I was doing this as a musing only, because we get one life to live and not multiples and we can’t go back anyhow. But nonetheless, “what if” Fran and I had met earlier, say in the early 70’s when we were each dissatisfied with current relationships? It’s an interesting mind game for us – who needs Sim City? (more…)
July 7, 2009
Robert McNamara is dead. What have we learned?
I once thought that Secretary of Defense McNamara was simply amoral, but after hearing him speak in the 90’s at Swarthmore, I know it’s something far worse. He claims to recognize the Vietnam War as a moral issue and “feels” for people’s loss and is “sorry” for what happened, but offers no apology for sending thousands to their death for what he knew was a lost and mistaken cause. See material below from the NYTimes obituary of July 7, 2009 and “The Fog of War” interviews of 2003. (more…)
March 18, 2009
Is It Appropriate for a Christian Institution to Support a Military Unit on Its Campus?
Is It Appropriate for a Christian Institution to Support a Military Unit on Its Campus?
Presented by Paul Sheldon & Joseph Betz, on Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 12:30-1:20 p.m., in Room 300, SAC.
The life of Jesus brings a new covenant between God and man. The Prince of Peace tells us to put away the sword, trust in the Armor of God, and to love our enemies. If we are to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, which do we put first when these two appear to conflict? Until the time of Constantine, Christianity functioned apart from the Roman government, and complicity was minimal. How has the Christian message of love and forgiveness changed in the intervening centuries? What are the responsibilities of the academic Christian community in this regard? If you have questions, please contact paul.sheldon@villanova.edu.
***
The announcement above was distributed to all Villanova faculty and staff via the Campus Currents page, and in addition was sent to (more…)
February 28, 2009
History of the early Nazi period — personal and general.
My father had a keen sense of history, and when my parents were in Germany in the early 1930s (he had a graduate travel fellowship at the University of Berlin), he was aware of (and peripherally involved in…another story) history in the making. He also was something of a perfectionist, and carried not only his 16-mm Kodak but also a tripod and light meter all over Europe and the Middle East. I am the repository for his 1930s films, all on highly flammable nitro-based celluloid. When my parents returned to the states, he used these films and other historical material (some interesting items) for public lectures. By the time I came along, I would occasionally set up the projector so that I could show my friends our home movies of Stalin in Red Square on May Day and Hitler in his open Mercedes. I burned up much of the Hitler sequence by stopping the projector to see things better, and then Hitler would curl up before our eyes in wisps of acrid smoke. My father intended to get the “Big Three” on film, but Mussolini was out of the country when my parents were in Italy, and so we have a very nice sequence of the Italian square and balcony from which Mussolini used to deliver his harangues to the people (apparently the best possible shot available under the circumstances).
January 28, 2009
Thoughts, Ideas, and Principles
In response to a query on my Facebook page, I posted twenty-five “Thoughts, ideas, and principles” recently. Since this material might not be readily accesible by some, I have added it as a comment below for those who don’t have Facebook accounts.
January 10, 2009
Another side of the “good” war.
The following is a story that I recall from my psychology classes at Tufts. This is all that I remember of that course.
During WWII, when fighter planes in North Africa took off for enemy territory, it was customary to check the guns by firing a few rounds shortly after take-off. Typically a pilot would choose a target on the ground such as any sheep, goats, or cattle in range, as a test of sights and accuracy. Shepherds would regularly appear at the airbase with stories of animals killed in this way and be reimbursed by the U.S. government for loss of property. The going rate was $10, $20, and $100, for a goat, sheep, or cow, respectively. Unfortunately this custom resulted in occasional collateral damage in the form of the death of the attending shepherd. The government was unwilling to set a price tag on the value of a life, but the military psychologist in charge of winning hearts and minds of the populace (apparently my college instructor) was authorized to pay a burial expense to the nearest relative of the deceased, in the sum of $50. The incompatibility was obvious. After some discussion (should a cow be worth $40?), it was decided to pay the cost of a more elaborate funeral and give the nearest relative $150 toward this final expense.