“No one won the last war and no one will win the next”

I entered this world just five years after the man I was named after was murdered in Krosno, Poland, and whose family was taken to the Warszy Forest and executed and buried in a mass grave.

Just two years before I was born, President Harry Truman ordered the release of two atomic bombs, with the neutral-sounding names of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” to literally incinerate people and property in Japanese cities.

Although I was not aware of it at the time, three years after I entered life, my country joined the Korean War resulting in precious casualties on all sides of the conflict.

In my mid-twenties and early teens, I first became aware of the full-scale deployment of US military personnel to the streets and jungles of Southeast Asia, and as I witnessed the massive casualties returning to our country, I was paralyzed with grief that was among my friends and classmates.

When I was in my fifty-fifth year, President George W. Bush sent troops into the Middle East in what became known as the first Gulf War, and his son, President George W. Bush, engaged our nation in his “war on terror” after the 2001 attacks on our homeland, first in the plains and mountains of Afghanistan, then in Iraq and the highlands.

And now in my later years, eight decades into my life, President Donald Trump has chosen to blow up boats and eventually invade the country of Venezuela allegedly in order to put the country’s president on trial for drug trafficking.

And as I write this, the President of the United States has joined the Israeli government in an ongoing bombing campaign and a possible ground attack on Iran just as diplomatic talks seemed likely to ease tensions.

When I hear the military parlance of our brave servicemen taking a “tour” of duty in a “theater” of operations, one imagines a guided family group walking through an overseas art festival. But this seemingly neutral term disguises something dangerous and deadly as our nation’s youth risk the ultimate sacrifice in a war that has seemingly never happened.

Eleanor Roosevelt, reflecting on the futility and destructiveness of war, said: “No one won the last war and no one will win the next.” He meant that true peace is not won by war.

Our Nation’s Capital: War and Peace

Washington, DC is one of the most popular tourist destinations not only in the United States but also internationally. Many visitors leave the capital area and return home forever transformed in one way or another. The Washington, DC experience represents an important and inspiring, yet limited, partial, and narrow view of our entire national history and our collective consciousness.

First, our monuments, statues, and memorials honor our nation’s luminary heroes, our nation’s women and people of color, and some extraordinary people.

And second, illuminating and evocative monuments and memorials, while certainly moving, are appropriate and important in that they keep us forever connected to an aspect of our past while helping us move toward the future, primarily embodying and testifying to our nation’s past wars, and primarily honoring presidents who either served in or served during wartime.

Thus, the symbolic and literal narratives of our nation’s capital are only part of our collective story. The premise on which this narrative is based represents an important, though incomplete, story, primarily of white male leaders as organizing principles with armed conflict.

We find some monuments commemorating peace and peacemakers in Washington, DC: a Peace Monument(Naval Monument) located on the Capitol grounds Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism, Peace Sculpture Art Located on Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, Inspiring Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Located on the National Mall, and planned National US Peace Memorial.

We must value not only our monuments and memorials, but also our resources and energy for those working in conflict resolution, workers dedicated to preventing war and bringing existing wars to diplomatic solutions once they have broken out, as well as those of conscience who refuse to give their minds, their souls and their bodies to conflict.

As a nation, we must encourage practitioners of nonviolent resistance in the face of tyranny and oppression; Anti-war activists who try to educate their peers, their citizens, and yes, their governments about the dangers of unjust and unjust armed conflict and not their own before proper attempts at diplomatic means of conflict resolution?

Individuals and groups who stand up and put their lives on the line to protect the country from real threats to our national security and survival, such as those in our nation’s military, are true patriots.

But true patriots are also those who speak up, stand up and challenge our government leaders, who keep their Lives on the line by actively advocating for justice, freedom and liberty through peaceful means.

Looking at the history of humanity, it is clear that tyranny, at times, can only be resisted by taking up arms. In many cases, however, diplomacy has succeeded, and at other times, it should have been used more extensively before going to war.

We must all find it unacceptable when one’s patriotism and love of country are questioned when someone advocates a peaceful solution to conflict, because it is also an act of patriotism to work to keep our brave and courageous soldiers out of harm’s way and to work to create conditions and understanding that ultimately make war less likely.

We are again a divided nation: politically, philosophically, economically and spiritually. The theme of “values” has dominated recent public and political discourse.

Before we have another brave soldier lose their precious life, before a grieving family sheds another tear, and before the United States loses another ally in the struggle to preserve our democratic republic, the promotion of peace must rank as the highest value worthy of our immediate and sustained attention.