December, 2003
The Soldiers At My Front Door
BY JOHN DEAR
I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three block long town in the desert
of northeastern New Mexico. Everyone in town--and the whole state--knows that
I am against the occupation of Iraq, that I have called for the closing of
Los Alamos, and that as a priest, I have been preaching, like the Pope, against
the bombing of Baghdad.
Last week, it was announced that the local National Guard unit for northeastern
New Mexico, based in the nearby Armory, was being deployed to Iraq early
next year. I was not surprised when yellow ribbons immediately sprang up
after the press conference.
But I was surprised the following morning to hear 75 soldiers singing,
shouting and screaming as they jogged down Main Street, passed our St.
Joseph’s church, back and forth around town for an hour. It was 6
a.m., and they woke me up with their war slogans, chants like “Kill!
Kill! Kill!” and “Swing your guns from left to right; we can
kill those guys all night.”
Their chants were disturbing, but this is war. They have to psyche themselves
up for the kill. They have to believe that flying off to some tiny, remote
desert town in Iraq where they will march in front of someone’s house
and kill poor young Iraqis has some greater meaning besides cold-blooded
murder. Most of these young reservists have never left our town, and they
need our support for the “unpleasant” task before them. I have
been to Iraq, and led a delegation of Nobel Peace Prize winners to Baghdad
in 1999, and I know that the people there are no different than the people
here.
The screaming and chanting went on for one hour. They would march passed
the church, down Main Street, back around the post office, and down Main
Street again. It was clear they wanted to be seen and heard. In fact, it
was quite scary because the desert is normally a place of perfect peace
and silence.
Suddenly, at 7 a.m., the shouting got dramatically louder. I looked out
the front window of the house where I live, next door to the church, and
there they were--all 75 of them, standing yards away from my front door,
in the street right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming
to the top of their lungs, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Their commanders
had planted them there and were egging them on.
I was astonished and appalled. I suddenly realized that I do not need to
go to Iraq; the war had come to my front door. Later, I heard that they
had deliberately decided to do their exercises in front of my house and
our church because of my outspoken opposition to the war. They wanted to
put me in my place.
This, I think, is a new tactic. Over the years, I have been arrested some
75 times in demonstrations, been imprisoned for a “Plowshares” disarmament
action, been bugged, tapped, and harassed, searched at airports, and monitored
by police. But this time, the soldiers who will soon march through Baghdad
and attack desert homes in Iraq, practiced on me. They confronted me personally,
just as the death squad militaries did in Guatemala and El Salvador in
the 1980s, which I witnessed there on several occasions.
I decided I had to do something. I put on my winter coat and walked out
the front door right into the middle of the street. They stopped shouting
and looked at me, so I said loudly, publicly for all to hear, “In
the name of God, I order all of you to stop this nonsense, and not to go
to Iraq. I want all of you to quit the military, disobey your orders to
kill, and not to kill anyone. I do not want you to get killed. I want you
to practice the love and nonviolence of Jesus. God does not bless war.
God does not want you to kill so Bush and Cheney can get more oil. God
does not support war. Stop all this and go home. God bless you.”
Their jaws dropped, their eyeballs popped and they stood in shock and silence,
looking steadily at me. Then they burst out laughing. Finally, the commander
dismissed them and they left.
Later, military officials spread lies around town that I had disrupted
their military exercises at the Armory, so they decided to come to my house
and to the church in retaliation. Others appealed to the archbishop to
have me kicked out of New Mexico for denouncing their warmaking. Then,
a general called the mayor and asked him to mediate “negotiations” with
me, saying he did not want the military “in confrontation” with
the church. Really, the mayor told me, they fear that I will disrupt the
gala send-off next month, just before Christmas, when the soldiers go to
Iraq.
This dramatic episode is only the latest in a series of confrontations
since I came to the desert of New Mexico in the summer of 2002 to serve
as pastor of several poor, desert churches. I have spoken out extensively
against the U.S. war on Iraq, and been denounced by people, including church
people, across the state. I have organized small Christian peace groups
throughout the state. We planned a prayer vigil for nuclear disarmament
at Los Alamos on the anniversary of Hiroshima this past August, but when
the devout people of Los Alamos, most of them Catholic, heard about it,
they appealed to the archbishop to have me expelled if I appeared publicly
in their town. In the end, I did not attend the vigil, but the publicity
gave me further opportunities to call for the closing of Los Alamos. I
receive hate mail, negative phone calls and at least one death threat for
daring to criticize our country. But New Mexico is the poorest state in
the U.S. It is also number one in military spending and number one in nuclear
weapons. It is the most militarized, the most in need of disarmament, the
most in need of nonviolence. It is the first place the Pentagon goes to
recruit poor youth into the empire’s army.
If we are to change the direction of our country, and turn people against
Bush’s occupation of Iraq, we are going to have to face the ire and
persecution of our local communities. If peace people in every local community
insisted that our troops be brought home immediately, that the U.N. be
sent in to restore Iraq, that all U.S. military aid to the Middle East
be cut, and that our arsenal of weapons of mass destruction be dismantled,
then we might all find soldiers marching at our front doors, trying to
intimidate us. If we can face our soldiers, call them to quit the military
and urge them to disobey orders to kill, then perhaps some of them will
refuse to fight, become conscientious objectors and take up the wisdom
of nonviolence. If we can look them in the eye and engage them in personal
Satyagraha as Gandhi demonstrated, then we know that the transformation
has begun.
In the end, the episode for me was an experience of hope. We must be making
a difference if the soldiers have to march at our front doors. That they
failed to convert me or intimidate me, that they had to listen to my side
of the story, may haunt their consciences as they travel to Iraq. No matter
what happens, they have heard loud and clear the good news that God does
not want them to kill anyone. I hope we can all learn the lesson.
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