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.
I’ve always been a peaceful person. Even as a child I never fought back when I was hit or bullied. Having been brought up in a fundamentalistic Black Baptist Church, I was taught to turn the other cheek. As a teenager that peaceful characteristic became a bit more difficult, but I held to it.
Through Friends Peace Teams, I have gotten to know people suffering from extreme violence from El Salvador to North Kivu to Ukraine to West Papua. We say peace is possible, because living in a state of war is intolerable and inhuman and we have alternatives. In my experience it’s people not in war who question whether peace is possible.
