First Unitarian Universalist Church “We Are A Welcoming Congregation!” 2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri  65804-3980 phone: 417-883-3922     fax: 417-883-7680 e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org

Peace is Patriotic by Nancy McShane
presented November 7, 2004, at the 1st Unitarian Universalist Church of Springfield

        Usually when it comes to fads and fashions my family and I are somewhat behind the rest of the people in our neighborhood. We don’t have cable or dish TV, we haven’t traded up from the minivan to the SUV and we have the only yard on the block that is mowed by a push mower instead of a riding lawn tractor. However, I’m proud to report that on at least one front we were on the bleeding edge of a trend that is already, as of last Tuesday, so “over” in Springfield.

        We were unofficially the first family in our part of town to have our yard signs stolen. We were so ahead of the times that our signs were stolen way back last winter, when Howard Dean was still ahead in the primaries and John Kerry hadn’t even hired the graphic artist who would go on to design his plastic slip-covered signs. The signs stolen from our yard were a year old, weather-worn sign stating Peace is Patriotic—No War! and its companion, a somewhat newer sign proclaiming Support Our Troops—Bring ‘Em Home! 

        The morning after the theft the kids were righteously indignant and Earl and I were just plain pissed off. How dare someone come on our property and try to silence our First Amendment right to voice our opinion! Shortly after that I got on the phone and called Joan Collins of the Peace Network of the Ozarks and asked her if she had any more peace signs. She said she’d ask around and call me back. It took her about six months, but by golly, she located three signs for me that were in the back of someone’s garage. It was a good thing there were more than one, because after I posted the new peace sign in August next to my Kerry-Edwards sign, both of them were promptly stolen. I replaced them and after that we became more vigilant, bringing our signs inside on Friday and Saturday nights. Now that the election is over, Peace is Patriotic is once again the lone sign in our yard, flanked by two American flags. We’ve got one more in the garage, should this one be stolen. After that I guess I’ll have to design my own signs. That’ll serve the thieves right.

         You know, this whole matter really confounds me. What on earth is so unpalatable about the message Peace is Patriotic that it would incite someone— who probably considers him- or herself a “true patriot,”—to break the law and the commandments by trespassing upon our land and stealing our property? What is so darn threatening about peace and the peace movement? Are these people’s stock portfolios heavily invested in war industries? Do they sell $400 wrenches to the Pentagon and are afraid of losing business? Are they cable news junkies who feel it somehow more important sounding to follow the news conferences of Paul Bremer and Paul Wolfowitz than those of Martha Stewart and Kobe Bryant?

Maybe all roads that peace protesters march along really do lead back to 1969 and the Vietnam War. Perhaps there is some sort of crazy Austin Powers-like time warp that links our actions now to our reactions then; (or is it our reactions now to our actions then?) It’s beyond me, because after all, I was only eight years old in 1969. I was too short to spit on any returning veterans. My view of the war came directly from television. I used to sit snuggled next to my dad on the couch while he watched the evening news. I took in what they broadcast unfiltered because my parents didn’t think I was paying attention, I guess. All I know is that because of what I saw on TV, I cared for the soldiers over there. I felt scared for them, even though I didn’t know any soldiers. I wanted them to come home where it was safe. If you had have asked me if it was OK for a Vietnam vet to come back home and protest the war, even at the tender age of eight I would have responded, “who better?”

That summer, my older sister ordered POW bracelets from the back of Rolling Stone magazine for me and my younger sister. Mine read: Lt. James Graham, 5-4-67. I put the bracelet on my left wrist. Oh, how I wanted James to come home. I remember staying home from school and watching my sister’s POW return home live on the Today Show, even though I don’t remember his name. Sometime after that I received a blue sticker with a white star to place on my bracelet to indicate that Lt. Graham didn’t return home, that he was now considered MIA.

That sticker only lasted a few months, but the bracelet stayed on my left wrist for the next 32 years. I thought of James every day for those 32 years. I prayed for him and his family. I prayed for others like him. I prayed every time American soldiers were sent into harms way. I cried non-stop during the 2 ½ hours of war scenes in the movie “The Deerhunter.” That thin band of steel was a connection between me and the soldiers of the Vietnam War and it stayed with me until June of 2001, when I finally received confirmation at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC that Lt. James Graham’s body had been recovered. I wept as I made a rubbing of James’ name on the wall, and I wept when I took off the bracelet at the memorial. Earl wept while he took the photos.

So, disagree with my politics if you want to, it’s a free country and you still have that right, unless there has been some change to the USA Patriot Act that I haven’t heard about. But don’t tell me that I don’t support our troops. Don’t tell me that my having a sign in my yard, or signing a petition, or marching, or attending peace rallies, or putting a peace bumper sticker on my untrendy minivan is the same thing as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. That’s poppycock! When our kids’ school adopted a platoon and sent care packages, we gathered supplies for the soldiers to ease their stay in a strange land. I get choked up when I sing the “Star Spangled Banner.” I also get choked up when I sing John Lennon’s “All We Are Saying, Is Give Peace a Chance.”

Well, if I’m a traitor for believing in peace, then at least I’m in good company. Here’s what some other noted peaceniks have said:

·        Peace is not an absence of war; it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. Baruch Spinoza, 17th century Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 - 1677)
·        Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine matter. Carlos Santana, Associated Press interview, September 1, 2004
·        I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days, governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)
·        Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964)
·        If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. Moshe Dayan (1915 - 1981) 

           Interestingly enough, when I went to the Quotationspage.com website to look up the quotes on peace, I noticed subject immediately preceding “peace” was “patriotism.” Here are some quotes on that subject:

·        “My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.” G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
·        And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), Inaugural address, January 20, 1961
·        You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)
·        When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882), Journals, 1824 

          And now let’s hear from those speaking about war:

·        War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. Jimmy Carter (1924 - )
·        War is not its own end, except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It’s peace that’s wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with. Lois McMaster Bujold, “The Vor Game,” 1990
·        What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), “Non-Violence in Peace and War”
·        Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) 

War. It’s crazy. Nuts. What could be more insane? Pre-emptive war. Let’s hold a war to stop a war. It just doesn’t make sense. If we truly had intended our actions in Iraq to be pre-emptive, they would have prevented a war. That’s what pre-empt means. To prevent. What we really had was a pre-emptive peace.  

I’ll tell you what I think we should do to pre-empt war. I think we should spend the money, and the time, and the talk, and the training that we’re spending now in Iraq, and use it to send people and food and medicine into the Sudan, and into Nicaragua, and into Afghanistan, and into the Gaza Strip, and into Haiti. I think we shouldn’t just focus on countries or regions that have something—be it oil or ports or diamonds or technology—that we want; but instead we should focus on  countries or regions where we have something to give. Which, being the richest nation on earth with a disproportionate percentage of the world’s wealth is just about anywhere, including right here in our own country in parts of Appalachia, in places like Mississippi and among the native populations in the west.  

I don’t really want my kids marching off to war, but I’d be behind my kids volunteering two years of their lives between high school and college to work for peace. What a character-building opportunity that would be. And after the kids are grown and Earl is ready to retire, I’d be for volunteering two years of our lives to work for such a program. There are plenty of you out there who did the same thing; worked for the Peace Corps. What a wonderful, meaningful way to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk. What a patriotic thing to do. Just like the patriotic men and women who are currently risking their lives to bring peace to Iraq. How I wish we could have made their job easier by doing this rebuilding under the banner of the Peace Corps instead of the War Department. How I pray that someday soon we Americans have the wisdom and foresight to enter a war-torn country in civilian clothing and declare to its citizens, “We come in peace.” 

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