“If you want to make peace
with your enemy you have to
work with your enemy. Than
he becomes your partner.”
Nelson Mandela
Today I was called from Casa Maria, the local Catholic Worker House of Hospitality that a letter had been sent to me at this address. With anticipation I went over to Casa Maria. Since the articles on the trial I have just received positive feedback about the issue we raised about military training at Marquette University. Not this letter. It was a copy of a letter sent to editors of the local newspaper by a person who identifies himself as a “Cold War” Warrior. My friend Joe says there are many negative comments about our cause and me on the online newspaper article.
His name calling and quotes from the bible out of context about killing and war I can handle. But his attacks of me as someone who dishonors veterans is hard to take. I can tell him about the many soldiers and veterans in my family and friends but that would not matter to him. Some persons cannot separate the war from the soldiers, teaching of reflexive killing, killing without conscience at Jesuit Catholic university from the university ROTC students.
One of my main motivations for undertaking this campaign against military training at Marquette University is because of soldiers I have known killed in wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, wars which I considered “immoral, unjust and illegal” or “crimes against humanity”. I believe it is wrong for a person to be put in a position to “kill or be killed” by his or her government in a war that violates our conscience, teachings of our churches and Gospel. We cannot be silent yet we need to be compassionate to soldiers who, if they return, are injured in mind, body and soul. The suicide rate among veterans keeps increasing since no military training can erase conscience and our human nature.
This man and many others often say to us that soldiers died so we can have the freedom to protest unjust wars and immoral military training. I do not feel this way and believe that war and violence only leads to more war and violence. Jesus teaches in Gospel “that we should love our enemy” not kill them.
In a P.S. the letter writer says: “Qui Desiderat Pacem Praeparet Bellum.” Although I had eight years of learning Latin I had to look up the translation. It is translated as “If you want peace prepare for war.” This is just the opposite of the Catholic church phrase: “If you want peace, work for justice.” I would like to add my version: “If you want peace work for peace.”
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