Comments on: A ‘War Story’ and a ‘New Start’: How I learned to Oppose War and Stop Paying for the Bomb https://nwtrcc.org/2021/02/04/a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb Fri, 19 Feb 2021 15:21:35 +0000 hourly 1 By: Chrissy Kirchhoefer https://nwtrcc.org/2021/02/04/a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb/#comment-2408 Fri, 19 Feb 2021 15:21:35 +0000 https://nwtrcc.org/?p=11989#comment-2408 In reply to Mark Judkins Helpsmeet.

Wow that is a powerful story! It is hard to imagine having enough life experience at 18 to be determining matters of life and death with all of the pressure put on young men especially in those years with the draft. I am appreciative of your resistance and sharing your evolution with your life experiences.

]]> By: Mark Judkins Helpsmeet https://nwtrcc.org/2021/02/04/a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb/#comment-2407 Thu, 11 Feb 2021 21:51:56 +0000 https://nwtrcc.org/?p=11989#comment-2407 Thanks for sharing your story, Chrissy. I grew up with the Cold War, but the beginning of my consciousness was really during the Vietnam Way – I was debating the topic of US Unilateral Military Intervention in 10th grade and started to see some of the issues and truths of war and govt policy, but I still was not clear about my own personal part in the war. I opposed the Vietnam War, but still registered for the draft when I turned 18 in 1972, still being young and foolish. By 1974 I had a much clearer vision of myself as a pacifist and war resister. But it was only when I returned from my years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa that I became very clear that contributing to the war with my body or my taxes was wrong, wrong, wrong.

]]> By: Chrissy Kirchhoefer https://nwtrcc.org/2021/02/04/a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb/#comment-2406 Fri, 05 Feb 2021 20:11:46 +0000 https://nwtrcc.org/?p=11989#comment-2406 Larry, Thanks for sharing some of your story here and more in-depth on Facebook. I am having greater appreciation of the impact of the Vietnam War on so many at such an early stage of adulthood; how that direct contact with war has influenced so many WTR and the NWTRCC network.

]]> By: LarryBassett https://nwtrcc.org/2021/02/04/a-war-story-and-a-new-start-how-i-learned-to-oppose-war-and-stop-paying-for-the-bomb/#comment-2405 Thu, 04 Feb 2021 23:54:39 +0000 https://nwtrcc.org/?p=11989#comment-2405 When I was in college I was faced with the possibility that I might be drafted to go to Vietnam. I ended up having a deferment so I was not drafted. But I had decided that if I was drafted I would not go. I had not had to decide what I was going to do instead. When I graduated from college I began working in human services and realize that meeting human needs was a much lower priority of the US government then supporting the military. I decided I was not going to pay federal taxes to support the military. If I was not going to fight in a war if I was drafted, it seemed clear to me that I should not pay for someone else to fight in a war.

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