Milwaukee 14 Sept. 24, 1968
Today is the 41st anniversary of the Milwaukee 14. This nonviolent action in Milwaukee was one of many across the USA during the Vietnam war that destroyed Selective Service System 1A files of those who were about to be forcibly drafted into the military to kill or be killed in a war that many considered unjust and immoral.
The Milwaukee 14 action divided the local community into two; one group strongly supported the action and one group strongly opposed it. I remember looking out the window of our jail block that night and seeing civil rights leaders Dick Gregory and Father Groppi leading a group of persons, including Marquette students like me, pass our window in a show of support.
The Vietnam War ended and so did the forced selective service system, giving way to a so-called ‘volunteer army.’ However, unjust and immoral wars waged by the USA continued and so did the strong-handed military recruitment of soldiers to fight these wars.
While the peace and justice persons were fragmented into many causes, many in competition with each other for time and interest, those supporting war, even “preemptive war” became stronger and more united. The military draft system went from a forced one to one of incentives, using education, security, patriotism and money to draft persons into wars even when the purpose of the war was morally and ethically questionable. War became ingrained in our society, reporters are embedded and children, as soldiers in training, are taught in video games to kill instinctively. This is Not Your Father’s Military.
While the military/industrial complex was adapting to the times and moving into the educational system as its new selective service system, the peace and justice persons continued in most of the same tactics as before, protesting and sometimes dropping nonviolent civil disobedience for petitions, phone calls, and emails. The “powers that be” learned that it was best to ignore these protest instead of reacting to them.
It has progressed to a point that a Catholic University, like Marquette University, can be a military training center for Army, Air Force and Navy for 14 colleges and universities in the state, and teach moral values contrary to those of the Catholic Church, and get away with it.
When some of us try to call attention to this immorality we are ignored, marginalized till we fade away. 41 years after the Milwaukee 14 I could only find a few persons to come over to my house tonight to talk and plan how to get Marquette To Be Faithful to the Gospel and No Longer Host Departments of the Military.
I was part of the Milwaukee 14 action because I believed it was the right thing to do. I felt I was saving lives in a small but significant way. The support and honor was nice but not motivating. I do what I now do and will do because of the same motivation to do the right thing. If it brings acceptance or rejection, honor or shame, compliments or insults I pray to God through the intercession of Mahatma Gandhi and St. Ignatius of Loyola for the strength to do God’s will.
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