Just Peace

by Don Campbell
Brooklyn Meeting

In wartime, conscientious objectors often serve in the chain of medical care. The hospital orderly in England who cared for my dad after he was wounded in the winter 1945 was a conscientious objector.

By that time in World War II, knowledge of the full extent of the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis was inescapable, and the orderly told my father that had he known what was truly at stake, he would have chosen to serve in the military and not as a conscientious objector.

My dad, who'd been shot through the neck and shoulder, told the orderly that had he known what war truly was, he would have chosen to be a conscientious objector.  

As a teenager, my dad enjoyed hunting. After the war, he never hunted again. He said he knew what it felt like to be stalked by someone trying to take his life, and what it felt like to hunt and kill other men.

I think of his hospital encounter now, as I wrestle with my conviction that the people of Ukraine are waging a just fight against Russia in an unjust war and an unjust world.