Besides digging out of the snow today, I spent some time in conversation with a young man from Ireland who is doing research on the draft resistance movement in this country in the late sixties and early seventies. He is earning his PhD in history from Cambridge in England but is in Milwaukee doing research. Since I was part of the Milwaukee 14 burning of draft records in 1968, he asked for an interview.

Talking about those days and modern times I became aware again of how violence and war is so embedded in our present society. We needed the forced draft in 60’s and 70’s because war was repulsive and killing someone was not natural. Today violence is so ingrained in our society, guns, video games, TV, movies, high school and university education that a volunteer military is all we need to carry on two wars and have a military presence all over the world.

Our present campaign to stop Marquette University from hosting military training programs for 14 area colleges and universities seems odd and unusual. Teaching war and violence is just expected, even in a Catholic Jesuit University.

When I was asked why I did what I did in 1968, burn draft records and go to prison, I responded, as I always do, that it only seemed natural at the time. I was just doing what I had to do. I feel the same way about our upcoming action to stop Marquette from hosting the military on campus, but these days there is not much response by society to this type of action. To many it just seems normal, teaching war on campus.

Normal is not always natural. We do see violence in nature but not violence consciously chosen. Teaching War is not the same as the natural act of self-defense. Wars these days are conscious acts of violence. If we teach war in our schools it is to be expected that war and violence be accepted as part of society. If we can stop teaching war in our schools maybe we can stop wars.

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