Warriors’ Writing Expresses Their Pacificism

A writing workshop for military veterans introduced me to warriors who had become pacifists. I worried that my views and beliefs would not be welcome here, but I was completely wrong. They accepted me just as I am. The Warrior Writers project came to a local community college to help the instructors understand their soldier students in hopes of encouraging more success.  They then gave a writing workshop I was allowed to participate in.

The veterans voiced their jaded views about the many SUVs with yellow ribbon magnets on them. “I’d like to write ‘blood for oil’ on all of them and see if anyone get it,” one man said. All of them, men and women, didn’t know what to say to some stranger who approached them to say, “Thank you for your service.”  None of them wanted to be called a hero. They had doubts about what they had done and why.

One Veteran’s Poetry

Here is a poem by Michael Applegate, a veteran, from a collection of writing and art called Warrior Writers.  The book was put together and published in 2014 by the Warrior Writers Project. He seems like a pacifist to me.

                                 Please Don’t

Please don’t call me a hero, I’ll break down and cry

I didn’t do it for you, I believed in their lies

Please don’t make me your martyr, because I did not die

Others suffered far worse, people we’ve come to despise

Please don’t pity me for joining, because I was poor

Money for college? My soul now a whore

Please don’t believe security’s worth trading freedoms for

Remember to honor the warrior and not the war!

Please don’t think patriotism is black and white,

Dissent is in my blood, I will stand up and fight

Please don’t let us approach democracy’s twilight

It’s more than just paper, our Bill of Rights

Please don’t listen to pundits from the Pentagon

Truth, the first casualty, the search will go on

Please don’t sit back and watch it all come undone

We must all fight for change, E Pluribus Unum!

Please don’t stop loving this country, yours and mine,

I need your help; and we’re running out of time

Please don’t forgive them for their war crimes

Treason murder, these things not sublime

Please don’t label me a commie, hippie or coward

My conscience my guide, peace is the way forward

Please don’t leave us behind, like trash to discard

We are more than just sheep that suicide has slaughtered

Please don’t just pray that things will get better

Try just a little, we can at least write a letter

Please don’t trust them, not one fucking senator

They’re all alike, they’d pimp their own mother

Please don’t hate me if you disagree with what I say

Freedom of speech, my gift to you, don’t take it away

Please don’t allow this to go on; not one more day

The longer this goes on, the more we all pay.

photo: WritingMeeting_Batali, wikimedia.com