RECENT OBITUARIES.

TedTord P. Lewis, a lifelong resident of Webster Groves, passed from this world on November 20. He was 88 years old. He lived life fully and died gracefully with family gathered and holding himin the light as he journeyed onward.

Tedford was a lover of humanity and a world traveler. He took great pleasure in life?s simple beauties, thrived on problem solving, and found joy in his many roles as husband, father, businessman, laborer, and fearless fighter for peace and justice.

A conscientious objector in WWII, Tedford performed alternative service as a smokejumper in Montana. He taught at the American University of Beirut from 1947-48, traveling extensively in the Middle East and Balkans before returning home to Webster, where he started a construction business. He married Margaret Warner in 1952, beginning 55 years of loving companionship and a family of five children.

Tedford and Margaret were leaders in local chapters of international peace organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, War Resisters League, and Fellowship of Reconciliation. They have been active members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Tedford was a self-made man who used his business success to support his beliefs. He was a founder of the World Community Center and lent generous support to causes that helped refugees and disadvantaged people. Tedford was a member of the Business Executives Move for Peace in Vietnam, and a leader in the movement that ended that war. He continued nonviolent opposition to America?s wars of empire until the end of his life.

His memory is cherished by his wife, Margaret; children, Stephen, Lannie, Tedford Jr, Chris and Erica, and five grandchildren. We are inspired to continue his work for a better world.

A memorial celebration will be held at 2 pm, Sunday, November 25, at the St. Louis Society of Friends Meeting House, 1001 Park Avenue, 63104.

In memory of Tedford, donations may be made to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, 245 Second St. NE, Washington, D.C. 20002-5795.? www.fcnl.org

You can connect with Margie by mail at 415 W. Kirkham, Webster Groves, MO 63119, or phone at (314) 961-4200. Her e-mail address is maglewis@charter.net.

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The following is to tell you readers who we were back in 1941-1945.

42,000 of us American men were classified as conscientious objectors during World War II and did “alternative service” at Civilian Peace Service camps run by the “Historic Peace Churches,” i.e., the Mennonites, Friends/Quakers, and the Church of the Brethren. Another 25, 000 became “non-combat conscientious objectors,” that is, they did not object to military service, merely to killing. The Non-Combatatant COs became ambulance drivers and medics during the war–often working to save the lives of “the enemy” as well. Others, who objected to cooperating with Selective Service (coerced military service) at all, went to prison for the duration of the war.

The film points out that America has always had COs–George Washington specifically exempted those “of tender conscience” from induction into the Continental Army. Most Mennonite, Amish, and Brethren/Dunker folk who immigrated to the U.S. did so to escape compulsory military service in Europe. So did many Jews. American history is littered with utopian experimental communities–and often these included a commitment to peace and nonviolence. But, until WWII, if one was a pacifist or conscientious objector in America, one was usually given only a few options: Violate one’s conscience by allowing one’s self to be drafted; pay for another to go in one’s place (an option given up until the Civil War); flee to avoid service (draft dodging); or prison. Thousands of COs went to prison during the first World War.

During WWII, some, like the Union 8, eight students at Union Theological Seminary of New York, still went to prison rather than even register for the draft. (I have met one of them, George Houser, who went on to help found the Congress on Racial Equality[CORE], the American Committee on Africa, and has been a leader in many nonviolent social movements.) Others volunteered to be “human guinea pigs” or “human lab rats” for medical experimentation–experiments that would never be approved by any hospital ethics committee, today, but which helped find cures for diseases and helped keep many civilians in post-war Europe from starving. My teacher, Glen Stassen, has talked about a high school teacher of his, a Quaker, who had weird growths on his body because he had been such a “human guinea pig” during WWII.

Others volunteered to work in mental hospitals. We still have a long way to go in the treatment of the mentally ill, but before this service, “hospitals” for the mentally ill were nightmarish places of torture and torment. The work of WWII COs (and many of their wives, too) transformed these places and changed the way that Americans thought about mental illness.

As one of the witnesses in the film (Sam Yoder) said, being in a Conscientious Objector during World War II was especially hard because everyone agreed that Hitler had to be stopped and no one, including pacifists, had any answer of how to do so without war. Of course, as another witness pointed out, pacifists and COs had warned about the harsh Treaty of Versailles (which ended WWI) sowing the seeds for another war.

Gandhian techniques for active nonviolence were in their infancy (Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried repeatedly to get to visit Gandhi–What would the German Confessing Church movement have looked like if armed with Gandhian nonviolence?). And, even today, there is no guarantee that nonviolent campaigns will be successful: We have many recent successes from the overthrow of Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia (2001), to the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine (2003), but success seems much further away in Burma (Myanmar). And nonviolent 3rd Party intervention, as an alternative to war, did not really begin until the 1970s and is today embodied in such organizations as Witness for Peace, Peace Brigades International, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Friends Peace Teams, Holy Land Trust, Nonviolence International, and the Nonviolent Peace Force. None of those options existed in WWII. There were amazing efforts using active nonviolence to rescue some Jews from the Holocaust (most famously in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in Vichy France), but those efforts weren’t available to AMERICAN pacifists.

Therefore, it was incredibly difficult to remain true to beliefs that taking human life was always wrong, in the face of the monstrous evil of the Axis onslaught–and in the face of constant propaganda which equated pacifism with cowardice. The COs worked to demonstrate that they were not cowards and to sow the seeds for justice and peace in the future. Many of them helped to launch the post-war Civil Rights movement. As U.S. troops came home from battle, many COs replaced them (especially in Europe, less in the Pacific islands or in Japan), working tirelessly to help in post-war recovery, feeding and clothing civilians.

There were no ticker tape parades for the homecoming COs and some, who felt they had done make work in place of work of significance, went into depression and seldom spoke about their experiences.

But we should never doubt their courage: the courage to go against popular sentiment, to swim against the tide, to suffer for one’s beliefs–even the courage to face war unarmed (as with the ambulance drivers and other noncombatant COs), but never to kill.

It still takes courage to be a CO today, even with more options available and a supposedly “all volunteer” military. Many countries still have no CO exemptions for compulsory military service and being a pacifist exacts a high cost. Even where alternative service exists, so that COs are able to avoid prison, in many countries they are permanently banned from certain occupations or even entrance to university.

The question often posed to us pacifists, “What would you have done about Hitler?” is hypothetical if we were born later. But this movie is a moving description of what some pacifists DID when they refused to kill.

True story of a telephone operator www.fortdanebooks.com

October 5, 2007 - Posted by Michael Westmoreland-White | nonviolence, pacifism | | 3 Comments

Michael,

This kinda relates to your post. We covered the Supreme Court cases dealing with conscientious objectors this week in class.

Since we now have a volunteer armed forces, I was curious…what happens to say a marine who willingly enlists and during his term of duty becomes a pacifist? Does that marine apply for objector status and get reassigned to a different job until his term expires? Or how does that work considering we’re at war? I assume there have been at least a handful of such examples in recent years?

Comment by Big Daddy Weave | October 5, 2007

Hi, Big Daddy: I can speak to this out of personal experience. I became a pacifist while enlisted in the U.S. Army (was that really over 20 years ago, now?). I applied for a C.O. discharge and refused to continue wearing my uniform or picking up a weapon. They threatened me with prison in Ft. Leavenworth, KS. They tried to get the chaplain to talk me out of my beliefs. The National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors (NISBCO), which is now called the Center for Conscience and War, sent me a lawyer and, after much more struggle, I was granted an honorable discharge as a C.O.

In war time, it is harder. Many COs during the 1st Gulf War were imprisoned–some were ordered to the front lines without weapons (which is illegal, btw). In this war, much fewer CO discharges have been allowed. Many COs have been given prison sentences. Some of these have made headlines.

During WWII, nearly every U.S. denomination stood up for the rights of COs, even the Southern Baptist Convention. Although VERY FEW Southern Baptists applied for CO status, the Convention worked to protect their liberty of conscience. But in this war, Richard Land has called them cowards and the SBC has done NOTHING for COs–except insult their courage, deny that they are really saved, etc. Legally, someone is allowed to become a pacifist and CO at any time. Practically, during war the burden of proof is on the CO to show they aren’t just cowards trying to avoid pain and death.

On the legal aspects of conscientious objection in the U.S., go to the website of the Center for Conscience and War and read everything you need to know.
Click Here

Comment by Michael Westmoreland-White | October 5, 2007

Michael,

Have you ever read “The Things they Carried”? I forget who wrote it, but it was about a guy who had moral problems with the Vietnam War (nothing astounding, I know). It’s a bunch of random stories, but there is a particular one I remember in which this guy had the moral dilemma of staying in Canada (dodging his draft) or going to fight in the war. I think you would appreciate it if you have not read it. My pacifist English teacher had us read it in college. Well, maybe not completely pacifist, he did support WWII because it was “the use of violence to eliminate a greater violence” as he would say.

Comment by Chance | October 6, 2007

The Missola CPS 103 Camp Was a Church Of Brethern Camp
But A Number of Us Had Served Earlier In
American Friends Service Committee
Section 1: Civilian Public Service Administrative Files, 1940-1946

Introduction to Collection The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 provided for alternative service for conscientious objectors who were assigned "work of national importance under civilian direction." Led by the historic peace churches (the Church of the Brethren, Religious Society of Friends, and Mennonite Church), many churches joined together in 1940 to form the National Service Board for Religious Objectors (NSBRO), which coordinated the civilian public service program. The AFSC was responsible for the administration of seventeen CPS camps and over thirty special service units which provided an alternative service program for 3400 men between 1941-1946.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fully-outfitted smokejumpers boarding an aircraft in Missoula, Montana enroute to a fire in the Idaho Panhandle, July 1994A smokejumper is a wildland firefighter that parachutes into a remote area to combat wildfires.

Smokejumpers are most often deployed to fires that are extremely remote. The extra risk associated with this method is justified by reaching a wildfire shortly after ignition when it is still relatively small. Another argument for delivering wildland firefighters by parachute is that the fixed-wing aircraft that carry smokejumpers are cheaper to operate over long distances, carry more personnel and equipment and have higher top speeds than the helicopters often used for other fire deployments. While remoteness is one reason parachute deployment is used, it adds to the risk inherent in smokejumping as crews are often hours away from help if the wind shifts or someone gets injured. The ordinary risk of a parachute jump, the adverse conditions for the jump, and the lack of resources for firefighting and rescue once on the ground in a remote area gives smokejumping a reputation as exceedingly dangerous work.

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My Grandson, Joe Lynch Sent This E-mail:
Something To Challenge Our Thinking
AboutThis Planet That We Live On. ClickHere

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth made by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space. It is also the title of a 1994 book by astronomer Carl Sagan that was inspired by the photo. In 2001, it was selected by space.com as one of the top ten space science photos.[ "We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you know, everyone you love, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

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My 15 year old boy, Evan Trembley, is missing. He has been missing for now two weeks.

Maybe if everyone passes this on, someone will see this child. That is how the girl from Stevens Point was found by circulation of her picture on tv. The internet circulates even overseas, South America , and Canada etc. Please pass this to everyone in your address book. With GOD on his side he will be found.

"I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE.

It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone knows anything, please contact me at: HelpfindEvanTrembley@yahoo.com I am including a picture of him.

All prayers are appreciated! ! "

It only takes 2 seconds to forward this.

If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get!!

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Letter from Venezuela’s Communications Minister
to the Washington Post Click Here

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Home Price Decline Steepest in 21 Years Click Here
It Can't Come Soon Enough.

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