“VETERANS’ DAY”
I have a complex relationship with Veterans’ Day. I honor people who have served this country, and I had two high school acquaintances killed in the Vietnam War. My mother’s love, Bob Buford, was killed in World War II, and my father also served in World War II, but I think that it scarred him deeply mentally and emotionally – I am surmising that part; I only met him once and did not know him at all.
And then there is my own personal history with Veterans’ Day. In 1970 I decided to withdraw from seminary and to challenge the automatic exemption from the draft that ministers and seminary students had. I was among a group of people who felt that if we could challenge the draft-exempt status of church-related folks, then we could deepen resistance to the Vietnam War. The draft board in Helena was only too glad that I had offered up my body to the sacrifice of the Vietnam War. I was faced with three choices (other than going into the army): become a conscientious objector, go to Canada, or go to jail. I felt like the CO was an educated person’s draft exemption, but the other two options did not seem feasible.
I loved my country, but I felt that the Vietnam War was not a just or honorable cause for our country. After several months of wrestling (and after being AWOL for the army physical), I decided to seek conscientious objector status. I was approved for that, and I worked at Opportunity House in Nashville as my alternate service, which the CO required. Opportunity House was a halfway house for men getting out of prison, and I learned a lot there about the injustices of the prison system in the USA.
When I wrote my blog on Veterans’ Day a couple of years ago, my longtime friend David Billings responded with a wonderful comment about the men in his family who had served in World War II, and with his permission, I am sharing those comments now to complete this year’s blog on Veterans’ Day. If you have not read David’s powerful book and memoir on race and fighting its power – please find a copy. It is entitled “Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life.” Here are David’s fine reflections on Veterans’ Day from 2019:
“My father was awarded the purple heart during his service in WWII. He was hit by a bomb fragment in the chin and survived chin and all. I remember choking up at his funeral when the 21 gun salute was fired and when the U.S. flag was presented to my older sister before he was lowered into the ground. I have often thought, as I have grown older, about the sacrifices people like my father made that allowed me to live a much different life than he and others like him lived. I felt ashamed sometimes that my risks were so much safer than the ones he took.
In the first two decades after WWII, the South was ablaze with racial violence. In fact my Uncle Harry (also a veteran) was murdered in McComb, Mississippi in 1962. The murderer was a young Black man. Uncle Harry was a white man from a working class but well-known white family (largely because all the Billings worked for the railroad and because there were so many of us--7 brothers and 2 sisters.) Now, 6 brothers survived at that time. Within hours of the arrest, the representatives of the KKK came to the house. They wore no sheets or masks. Everybody knew everybody else. "What would you have us do?" was their question.
Those who were home were gathered in a circle, and each was given the chance to respond. No one did until it was my Uncle James' turn to speak. James was a decorated war hero. He had seen death up close and personal. War was not yet a video game. You looked your adversaries in the face, so to speak. He replied, "We don't want you to do nothing. "We are not that kind of family."
I credit that statement from my war hero Uncle James with giving me permission to fight white supremacy which I have attempted to do in my life -- like my father's family had fought Hitler. Free of Hitler, I was now free to fight my own battles. Salute."
Nibs, the only thing I can tell you is that I have spent my whole life, from a very young age, trying to find an answer to my question.
ReplyDeleteWhy are there poor and rich in the world?
I grew up in a very working but very poor family.
I came to NYC 1968 alone without the help of family or friends. I thought I was escaping poverty. I thought there was no poverty in the US. I wanted to go back to my country. I was so enlightened to live in a rich country; the only thing that I thought at the age of 19 did not exist. It changed my mind. All that glitters is not gold.
When I had the opportunity to study (after leaving the Army) at Agnes Scott College on a scholarship, I hit the jackpot and finally found the answer to my question. I joined the Army in 1975 after the Vietnam War to get a GI-Bill
I would like to tell you everything but the road I ran was long and sandy. l was sent to Heidelberg, Germany, NATO Headquarters. It was an opened eye to live in a country l did not see poverty
Here in the US they are interested in material items and when they get tired they throw it away and buy new. There is no desire to learn, to recover the past. There is no interest in searching, in knowing other stories, other cultures to compare with one's own. Discussing the past, the old is not important. Old is no longer useful, there is no wisdom. They just want more of the present. They only think of themselves and the problems of others do not count. Power, money and time have become their gods and the rest is secondary or does not exist.
l supposed, Germany has been on the other side. They know suffering. Perhaps, the U.S. needs to go through that path before it reaches the point of love your neighbors as you do yourself