This file is about peace. Also see Patriotism and Politics, Political Humor, Military Humor, and Military.
It will be obvious by this page that I was opposed to the war in Vietnam. I feel we should never have gotten involved and if we did it could have been handled much better. I understand and support those who declined to participate. However, I am also proud of those who served in the military during those years--whether they felt it was right or just something they had to do. It was a time of difficult choices and few right answers.
Quotes
- Any statement that begins: "I hate war, but..." means I am prepared to kill you in the name of peace.
- The bomb that fell on Hiroshima fell on America too. It fell on no city, no munition plants, no docks. It erased no church, vaporized no public buildings, reduced no man to his atomic elements. But it fell, it fell. (Hermann Hagedorn)
- Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? (Blaise Pascal)
- The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. (David Friedman)
- Draft beer, not people.
- The Establishment center...has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster--a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation. (George McGovern about the Vietnam War)
- Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed and those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children...
This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. (Dwight Eisenhower, 1953)
- Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. (Colman McCarthy)
- Funny how no one is ever arrested for yelling for war.
- Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. (Charles Sumner)
- A good case for unlimited amnesty can be made out of the depressing fact that about the only way the average American can influence our foreign policy is by refusing to be sent abroad to fight in a war that is undeclared, unratified, and unjustified by any democratic process of telling the truth to the citizenry. (This refers to the war in Viet Nam)
- History proves that war is better at abolishing nations than nations are at abolishing wars.
- I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" (Eve Merriam)
- I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. (Dwight Eisenhower)
- I have seen war...I have seen blood running from the wounded...I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war. (Franklin Roosevelt)
- I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. (Dwight Eisenhower)
- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
- If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
- If everyone would fight only for their own convictions, there would be no wars. (Leo Tolstoy)
- If one soldier knew what the other thinks, there would be no war. (Yiddish Proverb)
- If peace cannot be maintained with honor, it is no longer peace. (Lord John Russell)
- If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. (Henry David Thoreau)
- I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. (George McGovern)
- In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. (José Narosky)
- It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it wont be U. S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the senate. (George McGovern)
- It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war. (John F. Kennedy, 1960)
- It is not known with what weapon World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. (Albert Einstein)
- It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must work at it. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
- John C. Calhoun's reply to a toast to "the Union."
"The Union--next to our liberty, the most dear! May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union."
- It's neither conservative nor liberal to be anti-war. It's humanitarian.
- Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
- Maybe we ought to return the atom and mark it 'opened by mistake.'
- Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air--explode softly--and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth--boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either--not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. (Robert Fulghum)
- Might does not make right, it only makes history. (Jim Fiebig, NANA)
- Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. (Albert Einstein)
- Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. (Ernest Hemingway)
- No man should be so foolish as to desire war more than peace: for in peace sons bury their fathers; but in war, fathers bury their sons. (from The Drifters by James A. Michener)
- Old soldiers never die. Young soldiers do.
- One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society...shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam. (Martin Luther King, Jr)
- Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. (General Omar N. Bradley)
- The pioneers of a warless world are the youth who refuse military service. (Albert Einstein)
- The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
- The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (Albert Einstein)
- Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. (M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter)
- Studies by Medical Corps psychiatrists of combat fatigue cases...found that fear of killing, rather than fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure, and that fear of failure ran a strong second. (S.L.A. Marshall)
- There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. (Henry Havelock Ellis)
- There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminates even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963)
- There would be fewer wars if we tried to determine what's right instead of who's right.
- To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill. (Sun Tsu)
- The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst. (Henry Fosdick)
- War doesn't prove who is right; only who is left.
- War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
- War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. (John F. Kennedy)
- War would end if the dead could return. (Stanley Baldwin)
- Wars have never hurt anybody...except the people who die. (Salvador Dali)
- We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
- We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace. (Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick)
- We should wage war not to win war, but to win peace. (Paul Hoffman)
- What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. (Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864)
- What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble? (Benjamin Spock)
- When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders.
- When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. (Jean-Paul Sartre)
- You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. (Jeanette Rankin)
But You Didn't
(author unknown)
Remember the time you let me borrow your car,
and I dented it?
I thought you'd kill me . . .
But you didn't.
And remember the time I spilled punch
all over your rug?
I thought you'd hit me . . .
But you didn't.
And the time I dragged you to the beach
and you said it would rain?
And it did!
I thought you'd say "I told you so" . . .
But you didn't.
Remember the time I forgot to tell you
the dance was formal
and you showed up in jeans?
I thought you'd drop me . . .
But you didn't.
And the time I flirted with another boy
to make you jealous?
And you were!
I thought you'd leave me . . .
But you didn't.
There were lots of things you didn't do.
But there were more things
you did do.
You put up with me and you loved me
and protected me.
And there were so many things
I wanted to tell you
and make up to you
when you returned from Viet Nam . . .
But you didn't.
The Courage to Act
(Janet Snyder in The Wichita Eagle-Beacon)
I can't understand the arguments used by some of the people who are opposed to amnesty; specifically, those used by Arnold Nichols in his March 4 letter to the Public Forum. At best, his position seems to be based on an emotional patriotic loyalty.
Nichols says that he feels sorry for the families whose "boys" would not defend our country. How can those who refused to be drafted be held guilty of failure to defend America. Vietnam was never a question of American freedom and liberty being at stake. American soil was never attacked; therefore, it never needed to be defended.
Mr. Nichols also asks us to think of the "boys" who have died and who are now lying in the cemeteries. If the "dodgers" and "deserters" had had their way, these now dead men would never have been sent to Vietnam to be killed. Reminding us to "think of the dead boys" is merely an illogical attempt to rationalize something America feels guilty about--the deaths of so many innocent people with no visible accomplishments resulting.
Many "draft dodgers" and "deserters" are conscientious objectors who were denied deferments. Would you be willing to kill against your conscience? They weren't, and they had the courage to act according to their beliefs, in spite of the threat of legal prosecution.
Don't be too quick to condemn these people, and don't let emotional appeals affect your judgment of them.
Sounds
(Helen Harrington)
Let me, if I will, abhor the sounds of war!
Do not force me to fly flags for bombs once more.
They are deafening, and my ears are sore.
I am a patriot of peace.
May I not, if I prefer,
listen to the gentle sound
of whispering, rustling in the ground,
And sense the quiet waters' flow,
And feel the roots of fruit trees stir
And hear grass grow?
One Tin Soldier
(Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter)
Listen children to a story that was written long ago
'bout a kingdom on a mountain and the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore, they'd have it for their very own.
So the people of the valley sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure, tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom--with our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there.
Now the valley cried with anger, mount your horses, draw your swords,
and they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward
Now they stood beside the treasure, on the mountain dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
PEACE ON EARTH was all it said
Chorus: Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven, justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpet blowin'
Come that judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One Tin Soldier rides away
The Five Senses Interrogate the Experts
(from "The Secret Look" by Jessamyn West)
"What is this silence?" asks the ear.
"It is the lack of laughter that you hear."
"What is this darkness?" asks the eye.
"A flight of metal birds across the sky."
"What is this odor?" asks the nose.
"The scent a lack of living gives a rose."
"What is this blankness?" asks the hands.
"The place a man no longer stands."
"What can we say?" cry all the tongues.
"We cannot tell you. Ask the guns."
Laying a Wreath at Your Grave
(Brooke Howard)
Toy soldiers, toy guns;
Make-believe wars to assure
You grew manly--
And now, love-filled warrior,
You are gone . . .
Join the Army
Join the Army
Travel to exotic, distant lands.
Meet exciting, unusual people
and kill them.
The Weight of a Snowflake
"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coal mouse asked a wild dove. "Nothing more than nothing," responded the dove.
"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal mouse said. "I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not in a raging blizzard . . . no . . . just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch weighing nothing more than nothing, as you say--the branch broke off."
Having said that, the coal mouse flew away. The dove, since Noah's time was an authority on the matter, thought about the story for awhile and finally said to herself--"Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come about in the world."
Battle Won is Lost
(Phil George)
The said, "You are no longer a lad."
I nodded.
They said, "Enter the council lodge."
I sat.
They said, "Our lands are at stake."
I scowled.
They said, "We are at war."
I hated.
They said, "Prepare red war symbols."
I painted.
They said, "Count coups."
I scalped.
They said, "You'll see friends die."
I cringed.
They said, "Desperate warriors fight best."
I charged.
They said, "Some will be wounded."
I bled.
They said, "To die is glorious."
They lied.
(Note: I know that 'counting coups' does not involve scalping but that is the way the poem was written.)
Losses
(Randall Jarrell, 1963)
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.'
Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
(Pete Seeger)
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
The girls have picked them, ev'ry one.
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young girls gone?
They've taken husbands, ev'ry one.
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young men gone?
They're all in uniform
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
They've gone to graveyards, ev'ry one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the graveyards gone?
They're covered with flowers, ev'ry one.
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them, ev'ry one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
End War? Of Course! Leave it to a Few Experienced Mothers
(Erma Bombeck, 1981)
A group of women were discussing the draft the other night and we decided if we were invited to a war, we could well have the imagination to think of some way to terminate it.
As the suggestions flowed in, we decided to make a list.
1.) Let Tim Conway make a series out of it and it would run only thirteen weeks.
2.) Put the war in the hands of the post office. It might not stop it, but it would certainly slow it down.
3.) Assign children to war zones and tell them they have to clean their rooms before they can go.
4.) Tell your husband it's something he has to dress up for.
5.) Transport troops via Amtrak.
6.) Have one-size-fits-all uniforms that are issued in little eggs.
7.) Schedule it on the same night Alan Alda is speaking to your child study group.
8.) Spread the rumor hair bleach will be in short supply until the war is over.
9.) Tell them the other side is fighting with a cellulite germ that makes thighs inflate upon impact.
Probably the best suggestion came from Barb, whose son graduated from high school and left home for the first time to join the Marine Corps. When he came home on leave he wasn't in the house five minutes before he engaged in a knock-down-drag-out fight with his 15-year-old brother.
Barb grabbed a wooden spoon, jumped between them, and gave them a look that would get her thirty years.
The separated and backed off. Barb figures the only way to end war is to draft experienced mothers, arm them with wooden spoons and
"the look" and send them into battle.
You haven't seen desertion until you've seen children running from their mothers' tongues. You think you can't stand hearing "What do you think you're doing? Don't you have anything more constructive to do? Now, put down that gun before someone gets hurt!"
Ridiculous, you say? Not half as ridiculous as wars.
Songs about Peace
- Chickens for Peace - Peter Alsop (1973)
- Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth - George Harrison (1973)
- Give Peace a Chance - Plastic Ono Band (1969)
- I Didn't Raise My Son to be a Soldier - Eli Radish Band (1968)
- I Don't Want to be a Soldier - John Lennon (1971)
- I Wish the Wars Were All Over - Tim Ericksen (2001)
- Kill for Peace - Oscar Brand (1985)
- La La (Peace Song) - Al Wilson (1974)
- Let Peace Prevail - Phil Cooper (2007)
- Missing Peace, The - Mark Pearson (2005)
- Mothers, Daughters, Wives - (Judy Small1999)
- My Youngest Son Came Home Today - (Mary Black1984)
- No Peace, No Satisfaction - Gene Chandler (1967)
- Peace Brother, Peace - Bill Medley (1968)
- Peace Frog - The Doors (1970)
- Peace in Our Time - Eddie Money (1990)
- Peace Pipe - B.T. Express (1975)
- Peace Pollution Revolution - Larry Norman (1970)
- Peace Song - Jesse Colin Young (1974)
- Peace Train - Dolly Parton (1997)
- Peace Treaty - The Nathan Davis Sextet (1965)
- Peacemaker, The - Albert Hammond (1973)
- Pray for Peace - The Edwin Hawkins Singers (1969)
- Soldier's Last Letter - Ernest Tubb (1944)
- Summer Prayer for Peace, A - The Archies (1971)
- Take the Star Out of the Window - (John Prine1972)
- Touch a Name on the Wall - (Joel Mabus2008)
- War That Can't Be Won - (Carol Noonan2004)
- What We Left Behind - (Tom Pacheco2002)
- Who Would Jesus Bomb - (David Rovics2003)
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