My family is from Berks and Lehigh counties, and I lived in Berks County for six years as a child. However, we moved to Western Pennsylvania in 1956 and I graduated from a high school there in 1965. I then went to a Quaker-affiliated college, graduating in 1969.
During all of my college years I was aware that I could be drafted, and I kept my local draft board apprised of my continuing status as a student. I was aware of the rising tensions regarding the Vietnam War, but I did not become politically involved until the fall of 1968 when I organized a student group to support the reelection campaign of Senator Joseph Clark, because he was opposed to the continuing escalation of the war.
At about that time I began to consider conscientious objection as my personal response to the war. I had been raised as a Lutheran, and had been active in my home church, often talking to my pastor about faith issues during my teen years. In my discussions with my father, who was a life-long Lutheran, he encouraged me to consider conscientious objection. My mother said that she did not want me to become “cannon fodder,” remembering how her younger brother had been drafted in World War II and sent to Europe to serve in Patton’s army. Personally, I had increasingly found that my own predilections and my Christian faith gave me an orientation toward serving others, a belief that all humans had innate value, and an understanding that modern warfare could lead to the extermination of humankind.
“What would happen if everyone was like you?”
With prayer and reflection, by the spring of 1969 I had decided to apply for conscientious objector status. It was clear to me that the Holy Spirit was guiding me to make that decision.
Nonetheless, I had to build a case for being a conscientious objector. I got information from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, and from the Lutheran Church (which had published a pamphlet stating that it was OK to be a Lutheran and a CO). I got the Selective Service form for filing a claim, and (on the advice of the CC for COs), got supporting letters from the Lutheran pastor with whom I had had discussions, from the current minister of my church, and from the principal of my high school, whom I asked to affirm that I was an honest person.
I met with the principal personally to ask him to write a supporting letter. He seemed skeptical, but when he said, “Don’t you think that you have been influenced by your Quaker college?,” I responded without having any forethought about such a question, “Yes, and I was influenced by my years at this high school.” The principal had nothing to say further after that. That clarity of response on my part I attribute to the working of the Holy Spirit and not to my own intellect.
The draft board then asked me to come for an informal interview. I was accompanied by my pastor, and it turned out that the draft board chair was a member of my church. I was asked a series of questions: some of them I remember clearly. One was whether I was a communist, to which I could firmly state “No.” Another was: “What would happen if everyone was like you?” I replied, “Then there would be no wars.” I was asked what I would do if I was not given a CO classification. I said, “Then I will go to jail.” That was another time that I gave an unprepared response that came from the Holy Spirit and not from my intellect. Finally I was asked what I would do if I was classified as a conscientious objector and then drafted. I was prepared for that question and said, “I will get a job as an inner-city social worker.” Afterward my pastor said that he was angered by the questioning from the board, but I told him that I had expected a more or less hostile environment.
each person during the Vietnam era had to make a personal choice
Within a few weeks I got a notice that I was classified as a Conscientious Objector. As I had been accepted into graduate school, I wrote to the draft board and asked for a one-year deferment to complete a master’s degree; that was granted. I believe in December 1969 I got a notice that in the next month I had to go for a Selective Service system physical. I went and passed the physical. A few weeks later I got a notice from the draft board that I was to be drafted and that I should get a job in social work.
I interviewed at Lutheran social service agencies in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and was offered a job as a “Boys’ Worker” at a Lutheran organization in Philadelphia. I notified my draft board about the job and I worked there from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1972. That experience was life-changing. Most importantly I met my future wife there, who was a co-worker. We were married in June 1971 and have had a fulfilling, committed, loving relationship ever since. Secondly, I experienced a radically different environment than the rarified college experience of my previous four years. The organization served a multi-cultural, working-class and generally low-income constituency. Their concerns and needs were not what I had known or seen, except in an academic way. (I had studied urban education and economic development in college, so I had some intellectual understanding, but no direct exposure.) In a very concrete way I came to some understanding and appreciation of the circumstances, values and attitudes of the working poor.
After completing my two years of social work I informed the draft board, and I was reclassified as having completed my service. I returned to graduate school, got a Ph.D., and went on to a career in higher education. Part of my career has included teaching and writing about urban issues, and about multiculturalism. In my personal life I have supported organizations that provide services to the poor and underprivileged.
I should make the point that I believe that each person during the Vietnam era had to make a personal choice. I honor those whose choice was to accept or choose military service, which was self-sacrificial. At the same time I believe that since the beginning of the Atomic Age all of humanity is in a situation where warfare is no longer an acceptable means of resolving disputes: within minutes, at any time, the future of humanity will be radically altered by the use of atomic weapons.