Who Supports The Troops?
by monty keeling
CStation Stationmaster

 

“You can’t support our troops if you don’t support our president,” writes one prolific poster on a popular pro-war Web site called Hugs to Kuwait. But fans of another site, this one called Military Families Speak Out, are more likely to embrace an opposing sentiment—“rest assured,” writes one antiwar correspondent, “that it is possible to be both an advocate for peace and a sincere supporter of our troops.”

 Newsweek’s web offered this glimpse of two sides of the present war issue in America. There was a time when standing against war also meant opposing those who fought in the war. My own denomination, The Church of the Brethren, is considered one of the three “historic peace churches,” and has been opposing wars since the 1700s. Up until World War II military persons were as welcome in the pews as prostitutes. World War II started a change and now we have many veterans in our churches. During the first Gulf War some of our churches even provided child care for military families called away to serve.

 The truth is that some of America’s best people serve in the military. And by best I mean folks who feel called to service that benefits their fellow human beings. Pacifists, like myself, and many in the military have the same desire to serve God to make the world a better place. Although we choose a different means to accomplish that goal. The present war was not started because the military wanted it, but because politicians thought it was a good idea.

 I remember listening to stories by M.R. Zigler, the Church of the Brethren peace organization’s Moses, about how helpful General Lewis B. Hershy, then head of the United States draft department, had been during World War II in setting up alternative service for conscientious objectors, and, after the war, for peace church mission projects of food and aide that reached a starving Europe before official help arrived from the government. Heifer Project, Crop Walk, and the Peace Corps were some of the organizations that grew out of that time.

 General Hershy, M.R. used to say, would always remind him: “You know if you people would do your jobs we wouldn’t have to do ours.”

 It is my unshakable belief that Christians should not fight in war. We represent another Kingdom that belongs to all people. And taking life, no matter what the purpose, is against God’s will.

 That said, I know Christians, good people, who serve in the military. So I choose to support them in prayer, not for military victory or success in the destruction of other lands, but for their safety, and, that even in ungodly circumstances, the love of God may be with them and act through them.

 And, as Bob Dylan wrote years ago in the lyrics of “With God On Our Side,” I pray that if God is really on our side: “He will just prevent war.”