Memorial Day, 1994
Compiled by the Editor
With Memorial Day approaching, my thoughts have lately turned to war. As a pacifist I usually pay little attention to war-related holidays, but this year, for some reason, I found myself reflecting on the terrible loss of life and human suffering and cruelty of war. I hope this collection of thoughts, by those who were acquainted with war on a first-hand basis, may serve as a reminder to us all that we must work always toward peace.
The Editor
Non-violence is the only thing the atom bomb cannot destroy. I did not invent a muscle when I first heard that an atom bomb had wiped out Hiroshima. On the contrary, I said to myself, “Unless the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide for mankind…” As far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages. There used to be within human nature a feeling that peace was the only ideal worth having.
—Gandhi, a few hours before his assassination, January 30, 1948
The army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
—Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Wartime is a bad time for writers, artists and thinking people.
—John Masefield
Durn tacent, clamant (Though silent, they cry aloud).
—Inscription on a monument, Union Soldiers’ cemetery, near New Orleans, Louisiana
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman
WAR IS WRONG. IT IS AN UNMITIGATED EVIL. I KNOW, TOO, THAT IT HAS GOT TO GO. I FIRMLY BELIEVE THAT PEACE CAN ONLY COME THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE. FREEDOM IS NO FREEDOM WHEN IT IS ATTAINED THROUGH FRAUD.
—GANDHI
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
—Benjamin Franklin
Hell, no! We won’t go!
—Anti-war chant
Three cheers for war in general!
—Bertolt Brecht
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.—Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
blood in torrents pour
Is vain—always in vain,
For war begets but war again.—Jake Davidson, “War Song”
Wars are no “acts of God.” They are caused by men, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change.
—Fred M. Vinson, Speech at Arlington National Cemetery, Memorial Day, 1945