Here's an article I recently wrote for my website
Common Sense, thought it was relevant:
Today is Memorial Day. All day I've heard about all the heroes who gave their lives in foreign wars waged by America. And I was originally going to write an article about how American war dead are no more or less honorable than the war dead of the countries we have fought over the years. I was going to track down the total number of casualties of any kind from all the foreign wars the U.S. has waged in the last century. I was going to sum it all up by saying that all war is bad and should be avoided even as a defensive measure.
But instead, I want to tell you the story of a man I know.
He was born in the 1910's. He lived through the great depression. I bet he can remember exactly where he was when he herd that Pearl Harbor had been attacked, just as I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard that an airplane had run into one of the World Trade Center's towers. He was there when FDR instiuted America's first peacetime draft.
So were many others.
But there was one difference: He thought killing was wrong.
He was there when draftees refused to fight. He was there when they were sent to jail. He was there when they were shunned by their families and the American public, while they fought for racial integration in the same prisons in which they were held captive, while they died in prison.
He was there when conscientious objectors were put into work camps, when these conscientious objectors were turned over to the hands of medical science: starved, overexercised, infected with hepatitis.
He read letters sent by angry, self-righteous 'red-blooded Americans':
'I am deeply ashamed that my country can produce such men, if you can call yourselves men. I certainly hope you don't call yourselves Americans, because you're not.'
He saw the U.S. Government-commissioned films: Us or them! It's a fight for our way of life! Have you killed a Jap soldier today? Every tank kills a Jap! Every truck kills a Jap! Every plane kills a Jap!
He was not a coward. He was a red-blooded American. And he wept when two nuclear bombs killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians.
He is one of the few Americans who registered as conscientious objectors in World War II. He is of a dying breed. Odds are that you don't know him. He scarcely exists anymore.
He is my grandfather.
And my great-uncle.
And he is just as much a part of this war as the most seasoned, battle-hardened proffessional killer.
Dave Dellinger, a leader of the conscientious objector movement in World War II and an antiwar activist in the Vietnam era, died several weeks ago at the age of 87.
Over 16 million Americans served in the armed forces in World War II. Only 42,000 Americans registered as conscientious objectors.
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
For more information on this topic, watch PBS's documentary The Good War— And Those Who Refused to Fight It.
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I'm an atheist/moralist.
My parents were hippies. Both my grandfathers were Mennonite conscientious objectors in WWII. It's complicated.
