"... I just hope to high heaven there ain’t any God, because we’re all in a whole lot of trouble if there is..."
Amen. The concept of "God" is just a convenient way "man" came up with to shift the blame. With every religion.
4
Good for you, W. D.
Father Lyons was a massive hypocrite. He used the excuse of future forgiveness to justify his present actions. That isn't supposed to be the way it works.
It was an attitude of supreme cowardice.
When I hear disabled veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq say that in spite of their wounds they're glad they served their country, I want to shake them. They served an uncaring, predatory corporatist class that conducts illegal wars in which thousands of innocent people are killed.
In recent years there has been an attempt by some to resurrect the "honor" of having served in the Vietnam War. People have forgot that that war, too was initiated by a lie, and cost the lives of over 50,000 Americans and over a million Vietnamese.
Thanking veterans for their "service" is abetting the falsity that sent them overseas in the first place. They did not serve the American people, but the ruling class. They need to wake up.
6
Ricky Gervais said it best ~ "I thank god every day for making me an atheist."
5
War is a system. Peace is a system. Religion is the reaching out beyond one's self from a place of love into the universe from a place of learning. War is expedient and based on the energy of anger, hate and the need to win for some purpose that cannot be achieved outside of violence. In war: Survival is winning. Not surviving is losing.
Both War and Peace have a place for religion but religion should hold the promise of Peace at the end of War. Why was the priest carrying a gun? Was not the VC his "flock" as well as this soldier? The soldier saw through it when he pointed out the rifle.
I've known other Priests who prayed over both the dead of their army and the enemy army as well. Traditionally, in battle, several people don't carry guns. 1. Medics, 2. Priests, 3. Musicians (remember the fife and drummer and the flag) 4. Civilians.
In today's war, the rules are no more. War is now the failure of Peace as a system for satisfying our needs. That war is criminal theft. Do we have any idea at all what the elements, the domains of the System of Peace are?
Do we have any idea what we've lost by following the black and red flag of the Mongolian Horde and the Settler Colonialism that to this day still pollutes our conflicts?
Peace is not easy, is not sweet but is fair, just and gives the hope of respect for all life. This man kept his respect and now he is healing. I thank him for his service. REH: TUSAC US Army, 1964-1970
1
"Thou shalt not kill"
FWIW the original injunction was "Thou shall not MURDER." There is a difference...
From the Papal legate at the first major military action of the first major crusade when he was asked by the general how to distinguish heretics from true believers: "Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius." ("Kill them. For the Lord knows those that are His own.")
Nothing much has changed...
USN 1967 - 71
Viet Nam 1968
3
Literature, this story isn't. Sgt. York's CO arguments were better. Not because he decided to shoot those who wanted to shoot him, but because they were better stated.
And in Sgt. York's day the micro- and macro-stupidity of repeatedly sending men over the top to see 75-95% of them killed was more of a justification for wanting to be a CO than was the macro-stupidity of the "Domino Theory".
I was drafted into the Army in 1968 and ended up in the 101st Airborne Div. in Vietnam as an infantryman. I am/was an atheist and in the religion category I requested Atheist on my dog tags. Unlike Corporal Ehrhart who got "None" on his, I got N.P.=No preference. I don't think Religious Preference, Atheist=No Preference. I agree 100% with Corporal Ehrhart.
I'm sick and tired of 'God works in mysterious ways.' It is simply a way of papering over all the inconsistencies and mumbo-jumbo that justifies religion's control over the lives of human beings.
4
War is hell, and each war presents it own horror, and it is why mostly males up until recently were the ones called upon to go to war. When we think about World War ll, most who fought it and survived, and their families, and Europe are grateful for those who did. When it comes to Vietnam, hardly anyone has good memories or believes that war served a purpose. My husband was in Vietnam, having come from a whole family background on both sides who were conscientious objectors as they had been Mennonites for several hundred years, and had left Ukraine, when Catherine the Great wanted to conscript them into the army. My husband joined the marines as he actually was embarrassed by his upbringing, but had a whole different appreciation for it after Vietnam. I didn't know him before Vietnam. Now, we raised our two grown children to be decent human beings, but not in any religious group.
1
God is too busy deciding which football players and teams he want to help to worry about wars and soldiers lives. Yet every country goes to war with "God on their side."
6
Great story.
2
When in war, you do God's work, taking lives. It is exhilarating, but you lose part of your humanity - it's a Devil's bargain.
1
What I find more disturbing than Ehrhart’s conflicted doubts, are the Jesuit’s priest certain responses to complex personal and theological problem of suffering. Easy answers—and a way out for Ehrhat as a conscientious objector.
Even now, a generation later, is Ehrhart himself even aware of this? I think not, and so still a good though unknowing Catholic. He is still asking big questions and relying small and sure answers he received in his youth. It is Catholic guilt he still carries around his neck, not undeclared religion on his dog tags.
1
I am a physician at the VA . I take care of hundreds of vets . Many hv lost their faith - not of any particular strip or persuasion - but of the principal of belief in God . One cause of this I have been lead to believe is a unrighteousness war -- who plans war , what lies are followed etc .. The current pbs series shows that Vietnam was not necessary . The neo- con selling of Iraq was over WMD and now we learn here again that we are being propagandized for another war by same powers that brought about Iraq war .. Eisenhower and specifically Kennedy warned of this - .
A lot of people don't know that many chaplains and priests served as unofficial ombudsman airing grievances from troops to higher ranking personnel without creating breaches of chain of command. Many also served as medical aid men in combat situations. Nearly a dozen were KIA and about 100 wounded. All Chaplain MOH were awarded in 1967 with the infamous CPT Charles Liteky of the 199th Infantry being the only survivor of the 3 that were awarded for actions on December 6th 1967 on a search and destroy mission in near Phuoc-Lac of Bien How province. Quite a few chaplains accompanied the troops on combat missions though Liteky never carried any weapons.
1
For me, the most insanely amazing outcome of the American war in Vietnam was that it had no impact in preventing additional wars by future presidents that were just as amoral and unnecessary.
The agonizing division in the country following Vietnam resulted in the abolishment of the draft so the next wars would be fought by better paid volunteers along who enjoyed better benefits.
The lack of the draft reduced objections to new American wars although the Bush II war in Iraq was the first American war that had demonstrations before the war actually started.
Without the draft, we Americans seemed to have fewer objections to the defense industry starting additional wars that would be fought by volunteers. The depth of our moral objections to more American wars seems to be shallow indeed!
3
Corporal - I'm a retired UCC Minister, as well as a CPA. I served in the US Navy as a QM2 in the Saigon and Quang Tri rivers of Vietnam during Tet 1 & 2 in 1969. I had similar conversations with my fellow "warriors" during that senseless encounter, and in every sense I applaud your comments. To the chaplain who counseled your true conscience, I'd say he was making nothing more than empty excuses for man's inhumanity to man. Jesus did not teach personal salvation, rather he taught the golden rule, which Christianity then as well as today does not follow or teach. Like you, I served my time and was honorably discharged, then returned to the US to protest that war, and the politicians and generals who promoted it with their lies and distortions, including every single person you mentioned in your piece. To this day I wonder why the US has not only not learned its lessons about prosecuting senseless wars, I also wonder why the US has not ever apologized to the amazing people of Vietnam.
2
I share your story, Corporal. Not as well as you did in this article but as deeply. I flew Cobras in Nam, helicopter gunships. I loved flying, I loved helping out our troops on the ground when they were in trouble and at night I would return to base climb into my bunk and think. At this time in my life, I was a serious Methodist and I was serious.
After a while of driving myself nuts about all the people, I had killed because it was my job. I just had to let it go and drink. And I drank a lot and returned home drinking a lot. Add in a dose of PTSD a smidgin of self-pity let sit for about thirty years and the smell was RIPE.
Finally with the help of counselors, books, and some very smart people. I came back to the here and now. I've decided not to believe in God or god. I try to be a good person based ironically enough on teachings I learned when I did believe in God or god.
1
The concept of cowardice in the context of refusing to participate in the Vietnam War has never had any meaning for me. This was about self-preservation. Life is the most precious gift given to us, and we show ingratitude and contempt for it by jeopardizing it to accommodate foolish people.
2
I think it's a shame that people have to endure these crises of conscience because they have been brainwashed by religion. These responses to Ehrhart's essay show how so many readers still struggle with these fallacious imperatives and baseless moral concerns foisted on them by old iron-age myths. Free yourselves, friends. The "God" you are hung up on probably doesn't exist. He's the product of the tyrannical imagination of bad people who are manipulating us the same way, and for the same reasons, that the debased creatures in Washington are doing to us even now. It's very difficult to cast these evil ones aside, but at least we don't have to make it harder by injecting the nonsense of religion into the mix to cause still more ethical complications.
3
I have always wondered about the role of Chaplains. How they seek to bring The Lord’s blessings to the world of war, to deceive the troops that they are serving heavenly service. And learning while reading this that they carried weapons, the purpose, I suppose, to kill the enemy If needed.
Charlie Brown had the more honest answer: What if there were a war and no Chaplains came. What would the generals say?
Religion has throughout history deepened our sense of tribalism, which encourages conflict, and justified war. This author was correct, as a humanist, to be appalled and repelled by the murder he was ordered to conduct. He was correct in rejecting religious authority and rationalization. If he was conflicted in Vietnam, he was not alone. He was realizing that actions have consequences and stupidity does not favor survival. There are wars worth fighting, but I dont believe we have entered one since 1941. Soldiers are sometimes heroic (certainly not ncessarily), but much more often victims of circumstance. And now, nuclear conflict is prepared for because of two psychotic misfits. We have learned nothing and never will.
1
I was too young to end up in Vietnam, but over the years i have had good friends that were, but none of them would ever talk about their experience. I have been watching Ken Burns new documentary on the subject trying to gain some understanding on the war. Every episode leaves me with the thought "What a waste" It amazes me what man can justify in the name of righteousness! I too was a young man full of Religious fervor but lost my faith after being molested as a young man by a trusted member of the church. It took me many years to realize that I was a victim of the circumstance and was powerless in the situation. maybe it's the same for you?
1
I saw Mr. Ehrhart in the Burns-Novick 'The Vietnam War' documentary. His insights/conversations were amazing. That documentary had many writers-soldiers-scholars like Tim O'Brien and Karl Marlantes who wrote novels to expunge their experiences for anyone to read. Mr. Ehrhart is a poet-writer who, like O'Brien and Marlantes, healed a bit by telling the story of war in all it's insanity.
The Vietnam War was not the "Great War" of WWII our fathers and history holds up as honorable. It was an introduction into modern warfare that has no front lines and could reach out and kill you anywhere, anytime. Like most wars, PTSD is it's legacy.
Every Memorial Day I bring my neighbor his favorite beer and offer a sincere "thank you for your service". He's a career Master Chief Seabee who did two Vietnam tours. He shares amazing stories and I listen. I just missed the Vietnam Draft, being a young teenager as the War was winding down.
On Memorial Day, I give money to veterans at stores and say thank you because I know America underfunds the VA. I often curse chicken-hawk politicians for too easily sending young men into meat-grinders for political nonsense (e.g. - Vietnam, Second Iraq War).
So I humbly thank our troops. I want our political leadership to ask combat veterans if America needs another war overseas before sending them. Listen to them. They'll explain there are no winners in war. Too many dead or disfigured friends they see on too many lonely nights.
1
I believe that the author lost his faith in God.
I do not believe the dialogue, which is so artificial that it seems to have been manufactured.
7
The mode of thinking here strikes me, an agnostic, as profoundly illogical. Yes men are often violent, and governments do horrible, senseless, cruel things for which we seldom hold their officials fully accountable (note the rehabilitation of George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson's relatively high status in rankings of presidents, though his body count is over three million). But blame God or even organized religion for the sins of men? That's crazy. Yes, people who want to kill and dominate others will often give religious justifications for murder and conquest. But in the case of Christianity, at least, one would be hard pressed to find in the words of Jesus any justification for violence. Then read Paul, a repentant persecutor of Christians. Is there a sweeter religious figure in human history? I've never understood how generals or self-described "Christians" like Roy Moore or Paul Ryan or NRA members can take the policy positions they take and do the things they do. But I do know they aren't following the New Testament. Becoming an atheist --is that a more logical response to stupid, misbegotten wars than becoming a militant, active pacifist?
2
I m an atheist because I think science and physics hold more and better answers than mythology. But, I am open to reason, and if I see convincing evidence , I will freely admit I was wrong. I don’t think,any rational god would care if I used birth control or not.
1
If there is a god (and I don’t believe there is), then he/she bears responsibility for all the misery of his/her creation. Believers always go on about humanity’s precious free will, but humans have amply shown that they are not able to handle freedom responsibly and compassionately. And where is the freedom of the infant who dies from hunger or is slaughtered in war? Believers speak of god as a loving parent, but what loving parent would let his/her beloved child stick their finger in an electric socket? What loving parent would his/her children to slaughter one another in the name of “free will”? The sheer conditions of life on this planet require killing and death and pain; the being who would create such a scenario would be a moral monster.
Well said and well written. Nice to know other RVN Vets see the world as I do. Mike 25th Inf Div 1966 and 1967 in Cu Chi
2
Bridging the Chasm of PTSD—War, Apocalypse, and the Failure of the Medical Model
War for me as young warrior was an apocalypse—brought face-to-face with my own death that couldn’t be denied. I survived, but the memory is always there—and comes back when least expected—creating a chasm between the present moment and that memory of imminent death.
The Vietnam war created such a chasm within me—scenes of death and mayhem. For a longtime this chasm went unrecognized—I was fine, but in denial. Then it came back.
I found that giving it a name—PTSD—by people who had studied and wanted to help—did not help. I hated the name; it labeled me—a cripple with a “disorder.” I was defective as a human being.
The VA throws lots of money at PTSD. “Supporting our troops" is a cottage industry, complete with gurus and entrepreneurs who have never been fired at in anger. Medication did not help
But, I learned that strong poetic images seemed to penetrate the deep psyche in a way that rational language did not, and lifted me into an emerging future—relieving me of the weight of the past. I’ve memorized poems with strong psychic images—a great solace.
I’ve learned to cope. I know that the war images are “still here,” and won’t ever go away. Occasionally they recur and incapacitate me. With age and art, I have a found a path for escaping that prison for a time. I don’t think my path is for everyone, but it works for me, to regularly find the thread back to myself and the future.
7
I am a retired Air Force Officer and Vietnam vet. I still wear my dog tags tround my neck, primarily because I am 81, and if I have another time seizure, I will have ID. It also says Presbyterian on my dog tags, and on the same chain, I wear a Celtic Cross. My father was born in Scotland and I am proud to be a Celt. My grandfather was a private in the British Army for many years, and shared three battlefields with Lieutenant Winston Churchill, two in Sudan, and one in South Africa. I lost my religion when I was station in the segregated South, and could not understand why purported Christians could support segregation. I now understand that evangelicals are very far from the teachings of Jesus, whom I still respect.
14
I define God as spirit, that which is generated by a common people on a common journey.
So for me, who also served in Vietnam, to kill a fellow human who is just trying to gain control of his country from colonialists, is an ungodly thing. Sure, war is necessary, but to serve god, to serve that common people, the human people, not to serve some rich person's concept of how the world should work.
Took me 60 years to get to that understanding of God. I look at our involvement in the Middle East, and elsewhere, and I see little of spirit.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
3
In a series of serendipitous circumstances I was not called up to serve in Vietnam. I was always suspicious of the motives for us being there but partway through graduate school and after the Tet offensive I joined the marches against the war. If called I was not going to serve-seeing the war at that juncture as a morass. Why should I risk my life for such a dubioius undertaking? The temptation to feel guilty was never far away, especially on visiting Mya Linn's Vietnam Memorial, where I wept freely for an hour. Still, adding my name to the wall would have accomplished nothing, but doomed my young family to a very questionable future. I am not guilty for not having served and laying plans to leave the country. I do not look down on those that went; they have my respect living or dead. We have a new set of fools to replace McNamara, Johnson and Nixon. I fear it will never end with young gullible men every generation and old fools to guide them.
7
This is one of the best Vietnam stories I have read. Thanks for your honesty, Corporal Ehrhart.
I had a best buddy who went to Canada to avoid the draft. He anticipated exactly what Corporal Ehrhart encountered in Vietnam. He wasn't afraid of dying. He simply didn't want to kill others for no good reason. Many mutual friends accused my buddy of being a coward. I think my buddy was a hero. He was willing to pay the price for being able to live with himself.
Of course, all Vietnam vets are heroes in a different way.
Courage comes in all colors.
11
I've thought for a while that believing in God is like a kid believing in Santa Claus
I sometimes wish that both were true, but the longer I live the less plausible it seems. Why would God let so many die in wars Over thousands of years?
5
This is why, in the days of the anti-Vietnam War Movement we chanted: "Support our Troops! Bring Them Home NOW!" This slogan still rings true today. Killing is no way to solve disputes and disagreements. Death is death, forever.
3
Thank you, most sincerely, thank you, Mr. Ehrhart. Contrary to that old saw, "there are no atheists in a foxhole", war is the most evil, pointless waste of human life, living and dead. When I witness the feigned piety of those who have sent our young men and women to their deaths in some foreign place, I wish there were really a biblical God to strike them dead. But there is not, and memoirs like yours are so vitally important, generation after generation, to remind those in command that the real cost of war is our very humanity.
4
for my generation , the baby boomers, there will always be the issue of vietnam- wrong ? right ? go ? resist ?
add that to that other american dilemma - the civil war and race - still unresolved
i have no answers......only questions of what it all means and how to resolve those questions.
for all the prosperity and success in this american experiment , we still have issues that gnaw at our very national being
1
I'm an Episcopal priest. I'm saddened every time I hear of someone losing their faith. As a believer, I understand God to be the source of life; to avoid the source of life is to avoid the source of our lives - like not drinking water or breathing air. But I get most upset at those who are supposed to teach us how to contemplate God, call them pastors, theologians, even Sunday school teachers, who have such an immature understanding of the divine which they pass along to others, who, when faced with trials and tribulations, become angry or even outright reject God, because they had learned a very meager way to understand or engage with the Almighty. I am sorry that Mr. Ehrhart has been refusing to breathe and drink for most of his life. I am disappointed he has not gotten back up, dusted himself off, and grown in his faith. I am angry at those who taught him foolish things. But ultimately, we all know that only we can plumb the depths of our being; no one can do it for us. Just as we don't expect to be at the same intellectual level when 30 as we were when 10, neither should we be stuck spiritually. All war is foolish: the rich abusing the rest so they can get richer, and Vietnam was no exception. When it comes to God and war, we all need to grow up.
3
The god of the Old Testament seemed to endorse slavery and genocide, and the death penalty for minor crimes. Hard to look upon him as a loving god. The only god I recognize is Mother Nature.
1
Obviously, Father Lyons was no match for the deep-thinking, and feeling, Corporal Ehrhart. When met head on by the agony of this young Marine's great moral dilemma, the chaplain could only offer him the standard, banal Catholic script about forgiveness, God's love, that He works in mysterious ways, yada, yada, yada. Surprising that he was a, presumably, better educated Jesuit.
After the priest's suggestion that he seek a C.O. discharge was resoundingly rejected, why didn't Lyons talk with him at length about personal, non-religious, strategies to emotionally survive his remaining combat time, and also promise to periodically check in to see how Corporal Ehrhart was coping? Instead, he irresponsibly abandoned him to his own devices. Which he wisely did, by later not identifying any religion on his dog tags, freeing himself from all that irrelevant, empty dogma, and fortunately surviving in the process.
On this Veterans Day, thank you Mr. Ehrhart for your service and story. Have to think that you've had a full, good life with that decision you did make 50 years ago, instead of the one that you didn't.
1
Thsnk you, Mr. Ehrhart, for your courage and honesty in sharing your story. What a gift you must be to your students. You are a hero in my eyes, so multiply that infinitely to imagine how God sees you.
1
Father Lyons was, in a way - an echo chamber for the writer - a person - maybe the only one - to whom he could express the deep reservations and disgust which had replaced the idealism which swept him into the service. But the priest has no profound truth to account for reality - no way to make sense of the war. It has to be hardest for those who firmly believed in the rightness of their acts to be hit with total disillusionment.
No one could fault a person when the "easy" way out was serving four more months in Vietnam, as opposed to landing in the brig. Either choice had a cost - imposed by forces totally unconcerned with what an individual recruit was feeling at the time. None of us can ever know where any other road may have gone. However, in this case, perhaps facing your own "crap" makes your work more compelling.
Almost all major religions make exceptions for serving Caesar - serving wasn't usually a matter of choice (for most). Is that how it should be? Is that part of the deal with government?
I had a student deferment & a high enough number, so I did not serve.
I'm a substitute teacher & my school arranged for a number of Vietnam - era vets to talk to students. I was very moved, almost to tears but I think it was in part that the message that most of these men ( I think a couple of women too)- the ones I saw anyway was that they did not question their service, their loyalty, their role in helping to sustain our freedom. I wish their hope of what they were doing had been justified- it's certainly why they went over there. But it is not the truth. & I worry that they had become part of the big history- rewrite machine that will lure their listeners into unquestioning purchase.
3
When you sign up for military duty you are making a commitment to kill other human beings, if necessary, and kill others on the basis of another "higher up" person's authority. I don't' know if each person who signs up fully grasps the horror of the reality that he or she may participate in. Would it be a different world if the absurd brutal cruelty of war was part of the pre-sign up orientation?
4
I signed up and became a lifer to protect my country and to get a better education. Plus, I enjoyed the companship. Friends you make in the Military become like family.
Agree 100%. Just don't do it.
Many bad deeds are done in the name of religion. Wars are one of them. Electing Roy Moore as US Senator seems to be another. If there is a good reason to be religious these days, it isn't visible to me. It seems to be primarily an excuse for immoral behavior.
I do not judge you, Mr. Ehrhart, and I wish you peace. Thanks for writing this moving op-ed and to NYT for publishing it.
7
Bill Sr: 'When you sign up for military duty you are making a commitment to kill other human beings, if necessary, and kill others on the basis of another "higher up" person's authority.'
That's an over-simplification.
First, it should be obvious that "you" are "committing" yourself to go into harm's way -- where people are going to try to kill you.
Second, everyone who enters the military takes an OATH. That oath commits service members to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic", among other things. (Google "enlistment oath" and "officer's oath".)
Bill Sr: "I don't' know if each person who signs up fully grasps the horror of the reality that he or she may participate in."
Combat veterans sometimes reenlist.
And there is a vast literature on warfare, including memoirs such as the one by Ehrhart. There are also films, such as "Saving Private Ryan", which attempt to show what warfare is like.
Bill Sr: "Would it be a different world if the absurd brutal cruelty of war was part of the pre-sign up orientation?"
Not likely. There are reasons to enlist that transcend "the absurd brutal cruelty of war". See the oaths I quoted above.
I suggest that you read some history on what happens when your country is invaded by a hostile force and you have no means to defend yourself. The Viking invasions of Britain and the Mongol invasions of Europe are examples. See also the history of piracy.
In Vietnam we had a drafted army, not voluntary salaried soldiers. And I’m not aware that the Vietnamese were invading us, so the Viking/Mongol thing doesn’t apply.
1
ENJ, It's difficult to realize what death is, and even more difficult to realize one's own death, to fully grasp that the person you are ceases to exist, all potential stopped, forever. If somehow one's own death could be deeply fathomed, it's reality vividly absorbed, the symbols which entice us into enter the military might be seen more clearly as Sirens, beckoning.
Excellent piece. I am grateful.
Some decades ago when I still wore the uniform, a local reverend stopped by to extend his thanks for my service. He concluded his chat with, "We pray for peace." I looked back at him and said, "You lie. You don't pray for peace - you pray for victory. Unconditional surrender would bring peace in a moment. But nobody ever prays for unconditional surrender." I suppose our victory made his praying a little easier.
4
What we call "God" or "the gods" is really a part of ourselves buried deep in our universal subconscious. God is us. That is why our conscious conception of the gods keeps changing according to time and place.
3
Not a particularly well-written piece for a writer and a poet. This sounds like someone putting together a dialogue they wish they had had long after the fact. The "voice" of the young Eberhart doesn't ring true. A confused kid in a war zone isn't going to be as precise in his choice words as this young man seems to have been.
I am not a religious person. I when I was in country in 1968, I disdained the chaplains. But looking back 50 years, I realize they weren't over there to justify or enable the war. Their job was merely to do their best to comfort young men who were alone and afraid. I commend them for that.
The writer seems to have had a faith of convenience. When it works for him, he re-embraces it -- Paris Island. When it doesn't, he re-abandons it -- Vietnam. I'm not impressed by this testimony.
The writer doesn't
1
This is avery compelling article. I could not think of more appropriate reading on Veterans Day. Regardless of the ultimate justification (or lack thereof) for military action, our soldiers have earned our undying gratitude for putting themselves on the line for Our Country, body AND soul. As to the issue of faith, I think that we always enter an impenetrable maze when we try to "personify" God and find God's Way with man's logic. In my way of thinking, cynical political leaders (some with "bone spurs") who create the conditions for war (ultimately fought by young, idealistic soldiers) are ones who need to be most concerned with their final judgement.
Wow; very moving article. I wholeheartedly agree with the author's perception about the evil of the war.
But I don't think that necessarily means that he should lose his faith in God.
It does mean that the war (and particularly the way that the American military forces conducted it) was a sin.
1
My then-girlfriend and I discussed Canada until I drew a high number and was safe. I felt guilt on both sides; for not taking a stand, and for surviving where many others didn't.
In 1983 I had a conversation with a former inductee who helped me see there wasn't any reason to feel guilty. It was cathartic.
Our conversation took place in the lobby bar of the Grand Hyatt in New York--Donald Trump's hotel. The irony has not been lost on me.
3
One can be an atheist while being optimistic and hopeful. One can also love and commit to another without benefit of a preacher or priest. I can work well with integrity and fairness because it is easier and more beneficial rather than because I fear being struck down by a supernatural evil thing. One can teach children the values of fairness and empathy without having to resort to an outside force or person who wants your money for his theology. I can think that I am lucky by chance, and also because I've worked long and hard, rather than crediting a foreign, unseen entity or blaming same for my laziness, reticence, or
bad luck. Just I don't think there is a before-after, for me there is no ever-after. This makes living more important as I accept the inevitability of death. Atheism makes life easier to tolerate and enjoy for its own merits rather than being a slave to community mores and outside invisible forces--I leave those to my night time dreaming.
2
Thank you Mr. Ehrhart,
Never having served in the military, I feel cautious about commenting on the Vietnam and other wars, with the sense that any veteran would easily shoot down my opinion using their veteran status. You provide me with the ability to voice support for your conclusions. I am disgusted that this nation still will not fully admit its error to be in this war - especially since we are repeating the same errors again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Too many politicians, clergy and priests and military industrial complex stakeholders work together to make war decisions for our young men and women who go into their service experiences ignorant of how they are being played.
4
To Mr. Ehrhart: Interesting that you associated CO (conscientious objector) with COwardice at the time rather than COurage as you now seem to do. I wonder what could have switched that association for you already at the time?
To John Q Doe:
If today is "Veteran's Day" then would not disarmament and putting an end to the terror of war (and the profits that steer wars and arms production) be a great way to honor the dedication, sacrifice, and suffering of veterans?
To Petey tonei: Is not a major difference here that the priest did suggest CO status as an option? Did not Krishna do the exact opposite in discouraging Arjuna from abandoning his role as a warrior on the battlefield?
To Aspasia: How do you think family members of a Vietnamese victim of U.S. assault would respond to the distinction between "kill" and "murder"? Would such a distinction have consoled you if you had been on the receiving end of Ehrhart's battalion's line of fire?
Finally, sdavidc9 raised an interesting point about the priest who could have become a CO himself yet his "job was to sell the product, not question its quality." What are the limits to which a military chaplain can condemn wars (which may entail being true to their conscience or understanding of their tradition) and still retain their job?
Thank you for your service and column Mr. Ehrhart. Unfortunately it is war that never should have been fought. Trump finally made it to Vietnam bone spurs and all after all those years.
Christ said very clearly, though shalt not kill. From that point on, the vast majority of Christians have found endless reason to evade that command, as if it were an amendment to the constitution. I prefer to be an atheist and answer to my own conscience.
4
"Christ said very clearly, though shalt not kill."
The Ten Commandments are in the Old Testament, which predates Christ.
To understand our values, follow the money.
The United States is the world's largest exporter of arms, with 31% market share. The US military budget this year may reach $700 billion dollars.
In 2017, Economic and Development assistance to foreign countries was $25.60 billion. Note the disparity.
What would Jesus do? "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition?"
2
I am re-reading Heller’s Catch 22 this week, and recommend this to everyone. We all own a share of the Syndicate that profits in the time of war.
(I served in the USAF during the Vietnam War. We worried about draft numbers, fleeing to Canada, living with killing, becoming a minister, like many others. And I quit going to church.)
That was one gut punch of a story. Thank you for writing about such deep hidden truths in a way that is understandable to anyone regardless of their faith or experience in war. Your words are timeless. We all would do well to heed them.
1
Most religions require one to place faith above logic, and then to make sacrifices on behalf of that faith and give money to the church so that it can maintain the infrastructure for continuing its mission to suppress logic and promote faith and belief in the religion. Doesn’t that feel pretty much like any other scam?
2
The problem with a war like Vietnam is not only the possibility of dying for unclear reasons, but the killing of people without a "just" cause. You did not then have the courage (as you put it) to do something to stop your involvement in the killing. But you have told your story now which is a fitting act of atonement (or at least a great start) from my perspective. Perhaps now is the time to reopen the dialogue with God - you just have to start.
Good Luck!
All thing about wars are repeats. In the run up to WW1 the English generated full participation with a national boo-rah campaign operated by Lord Kitchener who, foreseeing a long war, organized the largest volunteer army that Britain had seen. His previous accomplishments included a scorched Earth policy against the Boers where he invented the concentration camp idea that the Germans later adopted.
At the same time the Nobel Prize winning playwright and poet George Bernard Shaw was interviewed by a British literary magazine on his current work. The interview segued to the new war, and Shaw gave the most wise advice I have ever read on the insane conflicts governments create and volunteers rush to fight: "The soldiers on all sides should shoot their officers and come home."
It takes courage to say a think like that, especially in a national boo-rah environment. Shaw was a courageous man.
4
My paternal grandfather served Iunder Lord Kitchener in the liberation of Sudan in 1898 from a fanatic Mahdi. I highly recommend the movie “Four Feathers”, made by the Korda family in 1939 which used the war for a background. My life has come full circle since my son served in Iraq for 27 months as a young Army Officer. I served in Vietnam. “so ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst; Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, and a man can raise a thirst”. Kipling.
Religion and chaplains were just another way to keep soldiers fighting without questioning why. Mr. Ehrhart questions Father Lyons about why he was fighting, why God wanted him to. Father Lyons did his best to answer his questions but fell back on the usual and unsatisfactory God works in mysterious ways, because there are no good answers.
The truth is, there is no God. We were fighting in Vietnam because we were afraid (wrongly) that Communism would overwhelm the world. What a waste of human life, both for us and the Vietnamese.
1
Very glad that students at my old school are being taught by this man of conscience.
I was following along with the story until I read the words “when I enlisted I thought I was doing the right thing”. You volunteered to go into the military. You lost me right there.
"I lost my virginity in Vietnam, so was America" was the one I read 30 some years ago that still resonates. That are things lost and can never be found again
1
the evidence for the absence of god is all around us, every day. i choose not to believe. it simply doesn't fit with my experience of life here and now. I know for many (my deeply religious mother included) it provides comfort and peace. For me, it seems as though it is a closing of one's eyes to what really is happening in this world of ours.
9
The idea of personal agency seems central to your story. Three million more people expressed their personal agency in voting for Hillary over a lesser number voting for Trump and what happened to personal agency then? The electoral college elevated the votes of a few thousand people in a few states over the votes of millions in the entire country but individual electors had the chance to exercise personal agency and vote country over party (as a petition with over a million signatures begged them to do), choosing instead to vote party over country. The man now president who rages about starting a nuclear war as if he were giving just another speech at a rally has individual agency to push that button anytime. Individual agency led people to participate in the largest anti-war rally in history worldwide to stop a prior Republican president (who was also not elected by the people but selected through the individual agency of the supreme court) from starting the Iraq war which he then started anyway. These thoughts about individual agency may be helpful as you work through your personal conflicts.
6
Seems a story of religion mixed up with nationalism. Of course it doesn't make sense. And while this priest was trying to help a man live with it, Father Dan Berrigan and other clergy got sent to jail for trying to throw a wrench in the war machine, while Martin Luther King Jr. and others were telling us we'd lost our souls.
In the first few centuries of the Christian era most theologians wrote that it was incompatible with the teachings of Christ to serve in the military. Not until Constantine was there large scale contradiction of that pacifistic aim. But even then there was St. Martin of Tours, who put down his weapons and said he could not be a soldier of war and a follower of Christ.
15
Just a quibble from a non-Christian about the well-known quotation from Matthew in which Jesus says, inter alia, "I bring you not peace, but a sword."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_peace,_but_a_sword
I cite Wikipedia rather than the many other links because they at least try to stay neutral.
(Most people know that all the Gospels were written decades after the demise of their subject, and that they disagree among themselves on several key points of his life.)
Bach composed the "Saint Matthew Passion" , one of the greatest musical works of all time, on Matthew's grisly piece of Jew-hating propaganda. Go figure!
1
Sir, good day.First, about boats with holes- what if all of us were boats with holes?There's the core Christian faith in it.We are asked to believe that God has taken us into his fold by his son Jesus's sacrifice.Just believe.The parable of the Wedding banquet in Matt 22 tells just this.When the invited folks don't turn up for the wedding the master calls people from the streets.When the master goes about the dinner he throws away people who hadn't donned wedding clothes-clothes of salvation from faith.Those who wore it took part in the dinner.To take part in the wedding all you have to do is wear wedding clothes. It's all we are asked of-faith; Second, you're right.If we believe something is wrong we can't continue doing it and ask forgiveness.It works this way- God has pardoned all our sins and surely this doesn't give us license to sin freely and then ask forgiveness. Comparing to the metaphor of marriage, just because our spouse loves us and forgave/ forgives us doesn't mean we go about sleeping with other people.The formula is love;Third, is the thou shall not kill command. CS Lewis tells that the word kill is not synonymous with murder.Two friends may be in the opposite sides of the battle line,kill each other and meet each other on the other side with no ill feeling whatsoever; Fourth, not everything which happens is God's will.It's rather that God turns situations best to hold our purpose. So the idea that as there was a war it was approved by God doesn't hold.
4
CS Lewis tells that the English word "kill"is not synonymous with murder, but the Hebrew word used in the Sixth Commandment is synonymous with murder. The Old Testament condones killing, but not murder. Some new translation of the Ten Commandment say "Thou shall not murder."
It is remarkable that Mr. Ehrhart can produce a transcript of a conversation he had 50 years ago. I'd have trouble doing that after 15 minutes. But I wonder how Fr. Lyons would recall the conversation and how he interpreted his role at the time and five decades later. Mr. Erhart became disillusioned with the war - but so did Pope Paul VI. The spectacle of a global superpower carpet-bombing peasant villages was morally offensive to anyone with a sliver of conscience. Fr. Lyons' didn't have it easy. It wasn't all chit-chat over coffee and donuts and afternoon parish potlucks.
6
Well, he does say that "the conversation, which I still remember vividly, WENT SOMETHING LIKE THIS" (emphasis mine). He doesn't claim to be providing a transcript.
7
"It is remarkable that Mr. Ehrhart can produce a transcript of a conversation he had 50 years ago."
Ehrhart says that "The conversation, which I still remember vividly, went something like this ..."
The phrase "something like this" means that Ehrhart is reconstructing the conversation from memory.
On the contrary, Father Lyons seems to have had it very easy.
He justified the sins he was continuing to commit by citing future forgiveness by god.
He took the easy, hypocrite's way out, which is all too common with every Christian who doesn't behave like one.
When the question of a supernatural being arose in my adult mind the response was similar and has never changed.
We answer to ourselves.
20
Well done.
15
I, too, was an enlisted Marine, also a NCO, although a little behind Ehrhart--I was in from 1969-73. Unilke Ehrhart, fortunately, I never got sent to Vietnam: I did my four years in the States. I've read his poetry over the years, and have long admired his honesty.
And the honesty I can share--which I had to learn on my own--is that the US is the heartland of the US Empire: the US had no national reason to be in Vietnam, just like the US had no reason to invade all the other countries the US has invaded since World War II. These are wars decided by the rich and powerful, who never pay the price of their decisions--and I'm talking under both the Democrats and Republicans.
We still teach our young that it is their duty to "serve." When are we going to ask EACH person who even thinks about going into the US military why they want to kill another human being? Because that is the very purpose of the US military: to kill, destroy and dominate.. It's not to protect our country; it's to kill, destroy and dominate others, at the orders of the rich and powerful.
So, don't tell me "thank you for your service." If you want to tell me something, say "I'm sorry we elected those insane idiots, and couldn't prevent the wars they were determined to start. I'm sorry you felt you had to go."
Because had I gone into combat, I would have done everything every other combat vet has done: because that was the way I was trained by the USMC. And I've got to live with that.
40
Thank you for this column.
13
You're one of the few who are able to see and articulate the deep hypocrisy of "religious" war. Daniel Berrigan, Thomas Merton, and others in the Catholic Church have attempted to bring this awareness to the people in the pews. Few get it. Now Pope Francis is telling us that nuclear weapons betray a mentality of fear. Let's hope people can hear him.
26
Hindsight is 20-20. What is more cowardly? Staying or going? You have to wonder why there are priests wandering around combat zones anyway. A nun once tried to explain away the contradiction. She said the Bible meant "Thou Shalt Not Murder." Her implication: Killing is fine so long as your side is right. That's probably the day I would have switched the designation on my dog tags. I wouldn't wonder about the difference either.
11
Methinks Mr.Ehrhart read the same Gospel that I did. And that is precisely why I steer clear of any religious organizations.
"Mark 7:6New International Version (NIV)
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me."
19
So Trump finally made it to Vietnam 44 plus years after it ended, what a guy!
22
Would anyone be surprised if he awards (assuming he hasn't already) himself a Bronze Star, Good Conduct Medal, and Vietnam Service Medal for his "tour" in Vietnam?
As a Catholic priest, I have wondered what I would have done and said if I had been a chaplain among troops at war. I don't believe in war. I thought the Vietnam War was an abomination. But if I was there, what? Confess my own loathing? Add to the burden of scared conscience-stricken young kids? Maybe I would have said, I hate being here, you hate being here, but here we are. Take God's hand in this darkness. Grieve. God grieves with us. Trust that somehow he is with us all. Pray for an end to this. In the meanwhile, I am praying for you.
But as I play this back, it sounds so empty. That's what we do when we choose war. We empty our souls.
51
That is true.
The hard thing to do would have been to counsel the young men to refuse to fight.
But it would have been the right thing.
"As a Catholic priest, I have wondered what I would have done and said if I had been a chaplain among troops at war."
Haven't you ever talked to people considering enlisting or to veterans?
Doesn’t sound empty to me. God bless you, Father.
So much respect for any person facing up to the truth of their situation. I am assuming no one ever gets over doing the wrong thing over and over again for the wrong reason.
11
I occasionally look at my dog tags on which is embossed "no pref" for religion. My feelings remain unchanged all these years after Vietnam. Ehrhardt's encounter with a chaplain is one of the most interesting recollections of that awful war I have come across.
24
Grateful for your beautifully written thoughts. "Leaving the church", so to speak falls heavy on those of us who prefer to seek ethical consistence in our lives.
I understood from a young age that, in my case, the Catholic Church, was a system of indoctrination where I was expected not to seek understanding. It was also repression as I surmised by myself. I was raised "in and out" of the church so I had in me the seeds of curious dissent, but alas that did not stop me from wondering why, oh why could I not believe like others did. That is the ultimate price of being indoctrinated from a young age. I wish people were more like you: sincere and searching for consistency. Life is filled with inconsistency. In our complex and equally manipulative societies we stand no chance of ever really knowing what is true at any given point. However you have my deepest gratitude for your beautiful and perhaps simple thoughts but nonetheless like mine. I do want to have the right of simple thought to start with. I will look for your book.
10
As a college student, during Vietnam, I had the same conviction. And I became a Pacifist. Coming from a religious college I could probably have gotten that conscientious objector status. However:
As a woman, there was no danger I’d be drafted. Though I certainly did my part to contest the war by demonstrating. But I also could have fled to Canada. Or taken the option I know one other person did - to tell them at his induction physical that he was gay. Risky in those days, but it saved his life.
As it is, the writer enlisted. Enlisted, then learned what so many vets learned. Such a tragedy to take young men and destroy their consciences.
I recall thinking and writing, even before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq: The military would be sending young men and women into “moral jeopardy.” Then bringing them home with PTSD.
I was in anguish for what the wars would do to our service personnel. I still am!
Thanks to the writer for his youthful doubts. We are better, however, to doubt our leaders. Than to doubt the loving God who gave them free will.
Moral Jeopardy! That is what war does to young people. And we, their elders, we need to protect them.
A Draft should be the only way young people are sent to war. Then the Moral Jeopardy becomes our own!
10
"A Draft should be the only way young people are sent to war." said TheraP.
Amen. And even then, the rich and well-connected will find a way, like the Texas Air National Guard. Shrewd operators with heel spurs will manage to stay out of harm's way.
That's with a draft. The present all-volunteer army attracts mostly the poor, the minorities, people who can't find a job, and the young people who use the military to learn a trade.
wonderful article. thank you. an important message for Rememberance Day. You really nailed it. Your words are the voice and conscience of many who never made it home. who had the very same questions...in their last hours and days...
We may break faith with our God- that may be no small thing- .but we must never break faith with the dead: : "if ye break faith with us who die, we shall never sleep,, though poppies grow in Flanders fields". That is the faith we must keep" (John Macrae, "In Flanders Fields")
7
You had me 100% up until the last line: “I’ve spent 50 years wondering if and how my life would be different if I had had the courage to take Father Lyons up on his offer.” But you did have courage. You exhibited real courage by telling the truth to the priest and walking away from his false hopes and “God works in mysterious ways sometimes” – the latter being religion’s universal excuse for evil. The difference in those 50 years, if you had taken Father Lyons up on his offer, would be that you would have lived them under an illusion. Maybe that illusion would numb you to reality and make you feel better on some level. But I think you should cherish the blinding clarity you experienced in Viet Nam, and enjoy the rest of your life. You earned it.
25
Great article. I keep asking myself where was God when 6 million Jews were being exterminated. My Jesuit education could never adequately answer that question for me.
52
God was right where he always was -- in our imagination.
26
Read Victor Frankl’s account of his time in concentration camps. He was a psychiatrist and ministered to other Jews. He gives the account of young Jewish woman. Dying, she told him she was grateful for this time in the camps. That she had come to value “what really matter” - had grown closer to God. That the tree outside her window gave her wisdom.
At that point Frankl thought perhaps she was delusional and asked her more about the tree that “talked” to her. She said the tree told her: “I am life. I am LIFE. Eternal life!”
That is a moving story. There are others. I know of an atheist who was in solitary in a Romanian prison camp. Who received mystical experiences while there. So moved was he by these experiences that when they came to let him out of solitary, he refused for a time to leave his cell. He later became an Orthodox monk and priest.
It is my firm belief, having ministered as a therapist, to many severely abused persons that God suffers. God suffers WITH those who are tortured and killed and raped. That the Cross of Christianity is one type of a suffering God. That my own suffering - in solidarity with my patients - was just a tiny example of how much God suffers - alongside, with and within those who innocently suffer.
He believed in heaven until he spent time in hell.
When I was in university a professor told us that as religious scholars learn more and more, they tend to become less faithful. Real life can do that to a person too. Bill Ehrhart just explained how.
Maybe there is a god. Maybe not. But whatever the case, luck is a bigger factor than prayers in our destiny. We're on our own.
21
"I really believed it. I guess that sounds pretty corny, doesn’t it?” -- "Corny" is charitable. Having reached military age believing in an intervening god capable of magic is not corny, it's a symptom of self-serving, irrational thinking divorced from the natural world. The same type of thinking that supports flying airliners into buildings. And allows Republicans belief that they get a vote on the future of a woman's uterus. People who believe in a magic god, or worse, believe "they know god's plan," are dangerous. This is not an open question. Look around.
44
I think the Vietnamese have had their fill of "Christanity" and the "Catholic Church". Bill Ehrhart found humanity by rejecting our primaitve vengeful god.
19
You did exactly the right thing by finishing your tour, Mr. Ehrhart. God wouldn't have been able to save you from the disgrace of a Dishonorable Discharge. A God is scant protection from an enemy bullet. I see your anger and skepticism as valid and I hope with all my heart that you come to terms with your Vietnam experience.
16
There is no Point 11/11/17
The Priest back-pedaled
How could he talk straight
In the face of logic?
“Thou shalt not kill” was valid . . .
Except when it was not.
That’s the point behind
“war is hell.”
There is no point.
9
It is really hard to believe that people can buy the garbage the priest was putting out.
8
Thank you for sharing your story. I think more Christians should read it, especially those 4 words you quote from Jesus: thou shalt not kill.
8
Those four words come from the Ten Commandments. Jesus, a devout Jew, certainly believed them.
9
Wasn't it Moses that carried those words written on a tablet down from the mountain?
"I took my renewed religious fervor to Vietnam with me,"
You could have stopped reading right there --
"Religious Fervor" is the same thing as social activism wrapped up in a synthetic cloth of self-constructed ideals and expectations --
Guess what -- ?
It's not incumbent upon God to comport his behavior in such a manner that it conforms to your comfort zone of expectations --
It's your job to ask God - on a daily basis - what he wants he wants you to do for him - which leads to a true sense of faith and spiritual serenity --
Sure - you can hate religion, those evangelical people on TV, the Catholic Church, the phony preachers, etc -- but hating God because of the actions of certain people would be like refusing to go to the opera because you detest Rock & Roll and it's all just a bunch of loud music anyway...
2
One cannot hate an imaginary being.
Only the people whose childish belief in it drives them to lies and hypocrisy.
A well written memory.Many thanks for sharing what reads like a parable but
confronts us as a living, painful, unresolvable paradox.Declared wars, what ever their given reasons for beginning.Continuing. Ending.Until the next one, and a range of other types of conflicts are fed and sustained by lives.By temporary and more permanent conditions of bodies.Psyches.Souls and spirits of diverse fellow human beings.Spouses.Parents.Children. Sibs. Neighbors.Friends.And strangers.Both those lost and those left
behind.And in these choreographed ummenschlichkeiten,there has been
created,over time, an option to BE a pro- menschlich “conscientious objector.”An identity.A valenced status and state.A range of pro-life-helping behaviors in various contexts. Which superficially presents a misleading,
unidimensional irreality of “soldiers” of well being and “soldiers” of violence
and violating.That is not the paradox! The Vietnam war, and all those before, since. and those which will surely be, are all time bound.Whatever their contexts.Values.Sites. Reasons.Ethics. Sights.Populations. Weapons. Outcomes.Very few permitted an option for conscientious objectors.NONE have been enabled in the longest human,daily,violating WE-THEY conflict. Which engages all of US.Whether one is active or passive.Pro or con of whatever.Wherever.COs don’t document dehumanization.Marginalization.
Exclusion.WHO among US can/will BE Courageous?Cowardly?Coopted? Conscientious? Compassionate? Complacent? Nuanced COs!
3
"The Vietnam war, and all those before, since. and those which will surely be, are all time bound."
That's debatable. In the US, Americans are still fighting the Civil War. And the standoff in the Korean peninsula can be traced to the partition of Korea at the end of World War II.
W.D. Ehrhart thought himself a coward. I find him a man of great courage. Who among us has the courage to even ask himself such questions. Most of us hide such questions below the level of consciousness. And that struggle continues on for a lifetime.
23
"There are no atheists in foxholes' isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes."
James Morrow
40
Vietnam was our politician's enormous mistake, - young soliders paid the price. Reading these dispatches, the US is now reaping some very bad karma for not owning up to our responsibility. Even now, fourth generation Vietnamese children are hurt by agent orange we never cleaned.
12
Well, whose worse - the soldier who ducks bullets and returns fire in a war not of his making or the rich man's son who "hires" a doctor to find "bone spurs" and get him a phony deferment?
I think that I'd have to say the later individual (who also became the 45th president of the United States) is the one with the heavier moral burden. He may not have the grunt's PTSD, shame, and guilt but then... more's the pity.
12
It's never morally justified to kill just because you are bidden to do so.
There is no shame in avoiding having to kill other human beings.
"Draft dodging" is doing the right thing.
You're referring not to that, but to the hypocrisy of those, like Trump et al, who beat the drums for war but avoid it themselves.
In the original language, it's "You Shall Not Murder." That commandment does not abdicate self-defense, or judicial punishment (including death) by the community or state.
1
What was God's "original language?" As the omniscient creator of the Universe, couldn't he have figured out a way to speak to us that required no translation?
11
Interesting reading of the commandment, allowing you to continue to support violence/war/terrorism in the name of "self-defense" or "justice." Assuming you're a Christian and follow the New Testament, please interpret for us then how Jesus - a victim of state violence and who advocated loving thy enemies and turning the cheek - is advocating for violence against those who have wronged or threaten us.
2
I was always a spiritual person, though raised in a southern Baptist Church which I hated. It was my mother's choice & she dragged my sister and me there every Sunday while our dad stayed home for a quiet morning studying the Sunday comics page by himself. I envied him.
I eventually find myself in the army & I figured I could decide about religion for myself, so when the company clerk asked about religion for my dog tags I said "agnostic," & his reply was "Thats not an option. The choices are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish & none." I replied, "Can't I be Buddhist?" The answer was "no," so he put down none.
On Sundays, while everyone else was force-marched to the church of their "choice" all of us "nones" had to buff the floors of our barracks before they got back. It was quiet, honest work & in a way I liked it much better than army church.
Eventually I got to the field in Vietnam, & it was the most Godless place I had could have imagined. The jungle landscape where I had to exist for a year had been burned and bombed into a bitter mockery of what it once had been, scabbed away by agent orange & arc-light bombing. Everywhere we dug in we found body parts from old graves & unburied bodies surfaced by the shelling, & that became normal. Our job was search and destroy, to kill whoever we found there & they to kill us. We ambushed them, they ambushed us, fresh bones for an already ghoulish landscape. Somehow my own true faith eventually grew from that fertile soil.
24
What a moving comment!
And your “own true faith”? That tantalizing last sentence.... You leave it for us to ponder.
4
I often regret that I did not follow through on my impulse to ask our B52 unit chaplain just what he was praying for in his segment of our Vietnam premission briefings. We'd get info from intel on missile sites, antiaircraft gun activity, winds aloft info from the weather guy, and then the chaplain would say “Let us pray”. For what? Safety? Forgiveness? Bombing accuracy? Over one hundred combat missions later, each with the requisite chaplain's entreaty to his god, and I still have not figured that out. Kudos to the author for articulating what many of us did not say.
Gene Lock, Vietnam Vet
30
And now-finally-the Catholic Church is admitting there is no "just war," in spite of the just war theory we were burdened with for years when all the Church seemed to care about was abortion and birth control. That just war theory was dicey, always resting on "if this, then this" arguments for justification, a justification which most clever middle school kids could subvert to their will. Thank you, Pope Francis, you have done for us what no establishment Catholic bishop or theologian has been willing to do---admit the truth and try to save lives. When I left the church and joined the Quakers there was this truth. Quakers knew and exposed the lie of war for what it was. No apologies or apologia.
16
I didn't believe in the American war in Vietnam either and decided to apply for conscientious objection status before I was drafted. Since I was not religious I applied on non religious grounds to my draft board in California which honored my request.
Soon after receiving my new status I received a notice from the board that the district attorney of Los Angeles, Evelle Younger, had filed suit to over throw my c. o. status with success and I had been returned to l A position.
I went to my army physical examination in Cleveland and stood in line to speak with a physician about why my serving in the army was inappropriate and why my beliefs would present a danger to the other soldiers in my unit as well as the commanding officer.
With no hesitation I was granted an exemption and excused from service.
The last person I spoke with before finishing was the Marine Captain and commanding officer except that there was no conversation. Without a word he threw my paper work in my face and left the room.
I sometimes wonder what happened to that Marine Captain. Did he go to Vietnam himself and did he come out of the experience alive and still believing in American wars in foreign countries?
29
Amazing. I, too, applied for C.O. but was never given a determination, as I received student deferments until Nixon's lottery, where my number was too high to be drafted. I was surprised that the application would have granted me C.O. status were I a Quaker (like Nixon), or objected to all wars (I would have volunteered for WWII), but didn't seem to allow for objection to a war for which I saw no legitimate reason. Like you, I thought I would be a danger to others, demanding why we had to "take this hill" or that one. I recently watched the Burns' "Vietnam" and saw that very thing happen once the draftees were the majority in country. I couldn't quite understand how others could convince themselves to suspend all thought, criticism, and understanding to be a part of a war machine for such a nebulous cause.
1
As a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor, I thank you for this story -- even as I lament it: Not only because it speaks to the depths of your suffering, but also because it undoubtedly points to the pain of untold others who lost their faith in Vietnam -- and to the immoral acts that we as a country asked/caused/forced you to do.
The moral injury of war, done to self and others, often cannot be undone. That being said, your story and stance has such purity, which cannot accept forgiveness because doing so would be impure.
Although none of us are pure -- or innocent -- none -- reading your account, I thought of Jesus' words: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Twenty-three years of being pastor tells me that the God of Jesus Christ, the God of whom that good priest spoke 50 years ago, shall indeed receive your soul and all its wounds -- the ones you have incurred and inflicted -- not with condemnation, but compassion.
May God grant you and all who suffered then and now from that unjust war the peace, which the Bible says, passes all understanding.
9
You have granted the writer absolution. The Pure in Heart! So true.
You have brought tears to my eyes.
Aside from your mention of immoral acts, Rev. Van Nuys, your comment is well said and much appreciate.
Please explain to me and others how John C. from Van Nuys granted absolution. What does that mean? How does it work? How is it measured or quantified? Just because you say it??
1
God, they say is on the side of the victors, so it must be he was on the side of the North Vietnamese. My experience is you either came back believing in God or not believing in God. I didn't have the same Moral dilemma Erhart does, but the result was the same. When I lost my tags, my preference was no preference, but would have been none if I lost them again. So the saying is "there are no atheists in the foxhole." Actually what occurs is that religious people go through a foxhole conversion to atheism when the bullets fly. In fact in battle you don't have time to consider believing or not, survival is all that matters and is all that is of any value.
7
Bill you did the right thing under the circumstances stances.
As Napoleon Bonaparte said "Religion was invented to prevent the peasants from raiding the palace".
I recommend you seek spirituality instead.
Thank you for your bravery & service.
11
Napoleon was right. What makes you think that spirituality exists for only the religious?
1
While we are grateful for their service, we wish to God that their lives had been squandered for better purposes.
Having just watched "Vietnam" I realized that at the time I had no idea about the cynical nonsense on which the whole affair was based.
Shame on me.
13
I attended a school where the principal was a British Quaker. He was imprisoned for four years simply because he refused to go to war (World War II). He was highly respected and loved by all the students. A man of principles!
13
Your life would have certainly been different Declaring to be a c.o. would have brought down a rain of tribulation albatross around your neck,but at the same time reaffirmed you as a man of the highest principles and integrity. We all make choices the best we can. You are now a teacher at one of the more fancy eastern colleges,and now like all of us you continue to do the best you can with the knowledge you have. An epiphany with four months to go...a story which could go in any number of directions.
1
The Hebrew word used in the Sixth Commandment can be translated as "murder" or "kill." Jewish and Christian theologians interpret the commandment as making murder taboo. The God of the Old Testament obliviously endorses both war and killing in a variety of circumstances. The Catholic Church teaches that self-defense against an unjust aggressor is morally permitted and the defense of others to protect them from the threat of an aggressor is permitted. That a Catholic priest assigned to the Chaplain Corps wouldn’t have a ready answer to Corporal Ehrhart’s question isn’t plausible. Perhaps times has distorted Ehrhart’s memory of the conversation.
1
While the reasons for engaging the US in the war were misguided in hindsight, once there was a clearly defined enemy, and that enemy was trying to kill US soldiers. Ernie Brace's book called "A Code to Keep." leaves the reader knowing there was an enemy in Nam and those soldiers who engaged the enemy should have a clear conscience before God and men.
2
In the medieval Catholic Church, a soldier who had been at war was asked to do penance and confess that he had taken lives. I think part of the problem is our desire to imagine that our cause was just and so we are totally innocent. The South never repented the Civil War and the North never repented the blood it shed. With the Vietnam War, there is blood on every hand raised in its defense. But we did not admit our guilt and we did no penance. We did and are doing the same in the Middle East.
7
It's very hard to have a serious rational conversation with someone whose whole belief system is anchored in fantasies, but sometimes they want to try and it can be entertaining, distressingly comical, if you keep your distance intellectually.
4
Faith in divinity is a slippery thing. It's easy to claim faith, and believe one has faith, until life is hard. Even then every challenge to one's faith is a quiz, sometimes a mid-term until the finals or even the final paper. The final grade where faith is concerned is not revealed until life is done.
Religion is a different class from faith. Religion is mental programming, indoctrination, setting up a mental syllabus that allows for no variation. The success of the religion class is in how well the student is prevented from ever doubting the catechism of that class and the dogma that leads its students.
Faith without religion is like fish without a bicycle.
It's no wonder the chaplain had no response. He was fully indoctrinated. His imagination was closed off from understanding that dogma prevented him from seeing beyond the rules and regs of his profession of gun carrying clergy.
It doesn't surprise me that Mr. Ehrhart was UCC. UCC for the most part does not traffic in blind dogma. I wonder how Catholic and particularly American Evangelical Vietnam vets feel today about the killing they are commanded to do?
My guess is Mr. Ehrhart is proof that to be a good and righteous man, doing good, doing what is right, and walking humbly in life, needs neither a god or religion to be the best person he can be.
9
Fifty years out, Ehrhart still has his wits about him and that sets him apart. Seeking forgiveness, or waiting for it, is a futility he's well acquainted with. I hope that spiritual peace will yet come to him. The sins he committed were not his own.
11
As someone from the Vietnam era, I completely understand and empathize with Mr. Ehrhart.
It was a turning point for me in leaving organized religion that Thou Shalt Not Kill was all of a sudden not of importance in my Christian church.
7
I went to Viet Nam straddling the line between religion and non believing. On a few occasions in country I actually did attend services, but began to realize that the entire religion concept was in conflict with what war was about. I decided then and there that there actually is no god and that god is a man made concept to fill in the blanks that man himself is unable to answer and nothing more. My dogtags did say Catholic when I was drafted, but it was because I didn't grasp the concept of "None" at that time in my life. Today I am very comfortable with "Atheist" and have been able to put the god thing into the perspective it belongs.
10
God is Love. The moment we understand this, is the moment things become much more clear.
God loves you regardless.
God loves our enemies and we ought to love them as well.
The rest is commentary.
3
I went to Viet Nam in September 1965. After 3 months I knew we had no business being there. My first time to vote, I voted for Nixon because of his peace plan. Well that didn't work. I didn't tell people I served for the next forty years. I wish our current president had served, he might be a better person now.
14
Things never change, do they? People in the service think they're doing something good for the country, to help other folks, and supposedly doing it because they believe in some god or president or king, or sometimes as silly as showing they are not afraid. What a deception the politicians and the war industry sell all the time. Weapons of mass destruction, communism, economic divides, etc. Very sad that we can't all live in peace. God is not the answer, it's just an excuse or a crutch or the reason for the violence and wars. As this article points out, people use god as the reason for excusing all the bad things they do. What a delusion these folks have.
6
I can certainly understand how the men who fought for a bad cause in Vietnam would come away wanting to not feel that their service had been in vain, or worse. But the rest of us are under no obligation to warp our assessment of what a mammoth mistake the US involvement and actions in Vietnam were so as to not make them feel bad about their participation.
3
I took the opportunity to attend chapel while in basis training to escape to a place where people weren't screaming at me. It was comforting, but then I went back to the screaming. We didn't have a chaplain in my unit in Vietnam.
7
I have read that the Marine Corps suffered more combat deaths in Vietnam than they did in World War II. My wife and I come from military families dating back to the Civil War. Most of our relatives, including a Marine son, were combat veterans. All survived, but most, I believe, suffered from PTSD. And most, I have reason to believe, lost their faith in God.
12
"I have read that the Marine Corps suffered more combat deaths in Vietnam than they did in World War II."
Not correct. Bad, but not worse.
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-...
As a female I was not subject to the draft. The service I performed during the Vietnam War was to protest it, over and over. Same with the invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq War. I do not thank returning soldiers for their "service" in invading countries that never did the U.S. any harm and killing their citizens; neither did I or any of my associates spit on them as the right-wing propaganda maintains. Draftees or volunteers, they were all pawns for the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. As for God, if there is such an entity, I'm quite sure that it pays no attention to us. We are dust in an incomprehensibly vast universe, and a little more humility, a little less self-righteous murderousness would do our species a lot of good.
15
Wonderful article. Thanks for both your thoughtfulness and courage.
23
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
"God works in mysterious ways sometimes, I suppose".
No Father Lyons, 'God' works in fraudulent ways.
Kudos to Corporal Bill Ehrhart for discovering and exposing the greatest consumer frauds in human history, 'God', and one of his sick salesmen, the Fraudulent Father Lyons.
There is no 'God'.
113
The priest was a fair deal more honest in admitting his inadequacies than most Jesuits I've known, most of whom would have had far more polished apologias for establishment dilemmas that were and are so predictable. We send these chaplains out onto battlefields to try to provide a grounding context to actions that are so alien to normal life for Americans, but it can't be astonishing to find that the context often is insufficient.
42
Great article. But all the excuses in the world didn't exempt Johnson, Westmoreland and all the others in America's leadership lineup from their responsibility for the foolish decisions that landed you in Vietnam.
112
It is a great article.... I wept as I read it.
But all us liberals need to back up one president further as we deplore the Vietnam, and include Kennedy in the list of those we blame.
1
I doubt that God chooses sides so whats the use of Army chaplains? It always seemed a waste of time to offer prayers to a God who could care less as who kills who. Its illogical and an insult to the "Prince of Peace". I was in Viet Nam for 13 months and never caught a whiff of divinity making a difference. In war, God looks the other way with no influence on either side.
46
"I doubt that God chooses sides ..."
During WWII, the German Army stamped the phrase "Gott mit uns" (God with us) on belt buckles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns
"... so whats the use of Army chaplains?"
Chaplains provide general counseling, although that was obviously not helpful in Ehrhart's case.
Lincoln noted both sides of the Civil War believed God was on their side. But Lincoln was a far wiser man than most.
We frequently express our gratitude to soldiers for risking their lives; we rarely acknowledge what we owe them for paying with their souls.
222
My thoughts then and now: if there is a god, she must be crazy. There are non believers in foxholes; the randomness of death and injury create us.
53
OH God,Where are you? Certainly not in imperialist capitalist America...
51
Today, November 11, 2017 is VETERANS DAY. Thanks to all who served in Vietnam and to all the others for their military service. It was my privilege to serve my country 50+ years ago and I salute those still living and say a prayer for those no longer with us.
19
Great article! No atheists in trenches? Apparently there are some. Father Lyons carried a weapon, and had some way of squaring that with "Thou shalt not kill." It seems he was of the school that believed in "Praise God and pass the ammunition." Ehrhart wasn't as nimble at squaring such issues, and like thousands of others, would carry the consequences for the rest of his life. We need to get past the kind of war that has its fighters saying: "Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you." Better: "Hey Caesar, you want us to die? Tell us why!"
83
I hope Lyons went on to become a lawyer, he's a natural. Most of the guys I either knew or saw who were about to meet their maker were calling out for mom, not jesus. What can you expect when you're given a 13 month all expenses paid vacation in Lucifer's back yard?
"God works in mysterious ways" always sounded to me to be just another way of saying "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" ( in Candide by Voltaire, as spoken by Pangloss). An all purpose, vacuous platitude like "nothing to see here, move along", etc.
Erhart's instincts were good, had he taken that other road his life would have been miserable. I'm not saying that's right, just how it was and would have been. To this day folks with bad paper are chewed up and spit out at every turn, even though some are in the most in need of veterans services. I was an air force R.E.M.F. and I could barely keep my head from exploding, because the war went after you, chased you down, even if you weren't supposed to be looking for it. Having good paper, I get good to excellent care from the VA, without which I'd be dead. I still can't imagine Ehrhart's dilemma, and I saw him, or those like him, getting their souls dissolved on a daily basis.
7
Mr Ehrhart relax. The Christian concept of god is not complete. God is not a man. You are not your body. And best of all EVERYONE returns to the source unjudged and complete after death in this realm.
This concept of a judging god, the belief in eternal punishment, are manipulative tools pushed by the old religions. And they are not true.
So, again, relax.....you are loved and complete no matter what you have been told.
36
Dear Mr. Ehrhart, Thank you for your memoir. Had I fought in Vietnam, I'm sure that I would have suffered your same dilemma. The torment of those memories must be hard to bear. As we celebrate veterans, it is unusual to hear about the ways that war twists consciences. I only wish this country would learn the obvious lessons from Vietnam that you have, but given our recent history in the Middle East, it seems almost hopeless. Thank again for your testimony to the cruel absurdity of most if not all wars.
70
Over 300 years ago, an ancestor of mine commanded a regiment and attempted, out of a mystical sense of dynastic loyalty, to defend James II in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. He was killed as a result and the family's extensive estates in Ireland were lost. No doubt it all seemed so important at the time but today, no one remembers it. What was lost however, is still lost. The students in the college classes I teach are all too young to recall the Vietnam War. I well remember how important it seemed at the time but now, it is "one with the Meades and the Persians," ancient history. That the memory is fading has not however, revived the countless Americans and Vietnamese who died. What was lost is still lost. The vast majority of wars are, like Vietnam or The Glorious Revolution, based on lies, myth and the vested interests of the powerful, but packaged in flags, dogma and vacuous sentiment. With the sole exception of the American Revolution, my ancestors, having learned a lesson in 1688, avoided all wars. In 1968, a very old great aunt advised me "stay out of this war. Go to Canada if you must [I did not] Our family has been around a long,long time and we haven't survived by making targets of ourselves." Useless wars will continue as long as young people can be convinced to "drink the koolaid." My family stopped drinking it a long time ago. Others died - we survive and God's will, if there even is a god, has nothing whatever to do with any of this.
181
You and your family have also survived because a lot of our kin here, mostly sons and now daughters have died fighting to prevent harm to us in the homeland.
1
I agree but with one exception - as you noted in passing - your ancestors did fight in the American Rev. Some issues are worth fighting for. It's just hard without hindsight to know which ones.
2
And yet -- and as recently pointed out -- there are movements that begin their takeovers by killing the leadership of their opposition. Or by consolidating their power by imprisoning them. Jesuits have not always been received benignly, and have not uniformly subtracted from the people or places they have engaged. Their conundrums are not unlike our own, or our leaders' ones.
People growing up with our post Vietnam all-volunteer army, growing up without the shadow of that deeply unethical war have no understanding of how and why decent, patriotic and brave men would become conscientious objectors or draft dodgers or throw away medals of valor after serving.
At the same time, many of those who protested the war during that era forget just how deeply patriotic this country once was across the political spectrum, prior to 1967, when the lies became clear for all to see. Most of the guys who went to Vietnam prior to the Tet Offensive, both Democrats and Republicans, had at least a degree of the Kennedy ask-what-you-can-do-for-your-country spirit. After Tet, no one did. At least that's my perception as someone who missed having to make a decision about participating in the war by a couple of years.
As for that decision, there was no question that I was not going if the war had continued. I was an upper middle class white kid going to college. Nope. If my number had been called and college or a bone spur deferment didn't keep me out, I would have ended up in Canada. My wife points out that guys like her blue collar raised brothers would have gone instead of me. That's true and I can't rationalize or justify that.
Service in Vietnam was a complicated issue and doesn't lend itself to today's Manichean partisan debates.
136
Ever since Reagan was elected there been a effort to divide the folks of my generation who served or protested the war and did not serve. Ironically those who led that effort were the ones of my same age who avoided the war but supported the war in Vietnam....Limbaugh, Cheney, Bush, Trump. By the luck of a draft number I did not get drafted but I did protest. The main reason I protested was to bring these guys home because the country didn’t care about them. Of course there was a selfish reason of not wanting to put myself into exactly what Mr. Earhart describes here. And there was the guilt of thinking this was cowardly. But I think it’s time to stand up to this revision of history and throw these people out of power forever because they’re still doing the same thing with their fake Patriotism trying to make us fight over a football anthem. They’re just self righteous, divisive and anti-American.
262
Ever since Nixon would be more accurate
The religion or gods concept is doing more harm to the world than good. it is for this reason Muslim are growing population, because their god forbids them from doing control, there are jihadist too. Hindus are also doing politics in the name of religion, So are Buddhist. They says they don't believe on killings but look how Rohingya Muslim are treated in Myanmar. All the religion were man made in early days to keep peace and harmony in the society. But still they fought for a long time to keep it up and preach it. There were more killings. That is still going on today.
Now the concept of religion is irrelevant, Man has entered into moon, going to Mars they have access to the information of millions of light year away.
They have been able to get the picture of inside of a particle.
In this situation how you are going to convince your children, if you do some sin, confess in front of father and he will free you from sin. Does he believe?
10
The British poet, Siegfried Sassoon, wrote the following poem on his experiences of World War I:
'They' by Siegfried Sassoon
The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
'They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
'In a just cause: they lead the last attack
'On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
'New right to breed an honourable race,
'They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
'Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
'And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
'A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.
' And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'
65
No, they will not come back the same. We keep sending our sons out to do battle, whether on the football field or the battlefield. And they come back with their brains, bodies, and souls damaged, and then have to figure out how to live with the pain, using drugs, alcohol, anger outbursts, withdrawal, or, if these aren't enough, suicide. And of course, it's also their wives and children who are damaged as they have to adapt to or cope with the warrior whose wounds don't heal.
12
If it is any consolation, this same exact conversation happened some fifty centuries ago, oceans away, but same dilemma faced by a warrior, being consoled by his charioteer.
"Although widely published and read by itself, Bhagavad-gita originally appears as an episode in the Mahabharata, the epic Sanskrit history of the ancient world. The Mahabharata tells of events leading up to the present Age of Kali. It was at the beginning of this age, some fifty centuries ago, that Lord Krishna spoke Bhagavad-gita to His friend and devotee Arjuna.
Their discourse—one of the greatest philosophical and religious dialogues known to man—took place just before the onset of war, a great fratricidal conflict between the hundred sons of Dhritarastra and on the opposing side their cousins the Pandavas, or sons of Pandu."
Yours was not a "Christian" dialogue, it was a universal dialogue between duty and righteousness. Putting it in present day, everyone in business, military face 2 issues: what is legal and what is ethical.
30
I wish I had the time and sagacity to do justice to the plot twist at the end that makes the Bhagavad-gita so gut wrenchingly paradoxical and timelessly pertinent.
I have to say that I see no resemblance whatsoever between the chaplain's weak case and what Krishna, in the guise of the charioteer, told Arjuna. What Krishna says becomes the bookends of Arjuna's story arc, and I expect that no one is better qualified to interpret that moral than the veteran population. If this piques your interest, please check it out.
As one who knows the Gita well, and while I understand your point, i.e. that Sri Krishna counseled the warrior Arjuna to fight, I'm not certain that this is the same dilemma. I would also point to the Indian teacher J. Krishnamurti of recent times, who was steeped in the heritage of the Gita and the Vedas, who absolutely detested war, and whose whole purpose really was to ask the question, is it possible to live a life on Earth without violence?
Imagining St Peter at the Pearly Gates
W. D. Ehrhart stands before him, as does Roy Moore
St. Peter opens his Bible to Matthew 7:22,
takes a moment to review the passage
and then clears his throat...
11
How many millions have been killed or tortured
in the name of religion throughout the ages?
If there is a god, and I don't believe there is,
He or she cares nothing about the affairs of men.
Humans kill other humans , that is the reality of
our species.
I know this: as an atheist, I have more morality
and ethics in my little finger than those
" religious " people who voted for trump.
163
Anyone who believes in the supernatural is silly. I believe that there is a spongebob squarepants more than the invisible guy in the sky.
3
Carla I agree with you 100%. The hypocrisy of the religious is boundless. All the atheists I know are good people.
4
On the side of reality, Cpl. Ehrhart.
On the other side, the all-purpose, never fails, denial of reality, allowing the keeping of belief in the face of mountains of obvious facts, "God works in mysterious ways."
I still have my "NONE" dog tags, too, though being a couple of years younger than Mr. Ehrhart, I saw only a completely different Vietnam 40 years later.
20
Christianity's brand is suffering. It has nothing to do with whether or not there is a god, but the nature of that god if it exists and the veracity of the teachings and holy books of the world religions which seem increasingly implausible to more people.
Prayers are not answered. Good will come through the actions of men and women -- we cannot depend on a supernatural deity.
In the words of Trump: "Do something!"
5
A cri de coeur from W.D. Ehrhart, a reminder of the American photographer from Kansas, David Douglas Duncan, and the answer he received on asking from a Marine:
'IF
I were God
What would you want
for Christmas?'
His answer took almost forever "Give me Tomorrow".
25
My thoughts then and now were: If there is a god, she must be crazy. There are non believers in foxholes; the randomness of death and injury makes them.
10
What did the priest think of all those scared boys on the other side? Inhuman?
29
No silly, they were godless communists. No they were fighting for their country. Our poor soldiers were fighting for their country- I mean Northrup Grumman.
8
Ehrhart: Either you’re a Christian, or you’re not a Christian. There’s nothing ambiguous about ‘Thou shalt not kill.’
Er...First, it's not Christian, it's from the Ten Commandments which, if memory serves, was held by believers to have been given by God to Moses.
Second, due to one of the many mistranslations from the original Hebrew to the Greek, the text should read: "You shall not MURDER". Judaism makes a fundamental distinction between killing and murder.
A few clicks on the Internet : Exegesis
Critical explanation or interpretation of a text
Exegesis (from the Greek ἐξήγησις from ἐξηγεῖσθαι, "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, particularly a religious text.
3
If a god inspired the Bible, you would think he could have made his messages absolutely clear. Instead, we have thousands of religions, denominations, sects, cults, and individual believers, happy to tell us exactly what they have determined to be the "truth." In the words of John Stewart: "Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."
6
'... due to one of the many mistranslations from the original Hebrew to the Greek, the text should read: "You shall not MURDER".'
Good point. The NIV translation reads: "You shall not murder." (Exodus 20:13)
However, Ehrhart in 1967 was probably not conversant with the subtleties of Bible translation.
Source: biblegateway.com. (This site provides multiple Bible translations.)
1
Religions are projections by human beings (mostly male, given the preponderance of masculine pronouns) of their own hopes, desires, aversions, and other qualities onto a magical being whom they endow with infinite powers.
It is bizarrely entertaining to go through ancient and modern bibles and other texts to see specific versions of a supreme being acting just like human beings with all their faults and virtues.
Jon Stewart sure nailed it! Come baaaack! We need you!
The priest knew the score. He could have and should have been a conscientious objector himself. But his job was to see situations as God's will even when he knew that a God who accepted the situation was not worthy of respect. His job was to sell the product, not question its quality.
92
The priest's job was to serve the soldiers under his care. Do you really think he would abandon them for his own good? And this whole notion of God "accepting" or "allowing" something is such boxed-in thinking. Parents can disallow their children from getting into situations that might be dangerous, for instance, getting behind the wheel of a car when they are 16 or allowing them to something on their own. There is a risk that they might make a mistake or a bad decision that will seriously harm themselves or others. Yet parents do this all the time... why? Because being alive means making your own choices. Would you rather live in a world where the correct or safe choice is already predetermined, no matter what you do? Or a world where you actually can determine something about the course of your life? If our actions don't have real consequences, good or bad, they are truly meaningless. God created us to participate in creation. You can't participate in it unless there is the risk of messing it up. This is what is so problematic with society in the 21st century. We aren't willing to be creative because we are afraid of making mistakes. We teach our kids to value unattainable perfection instead of excellence. So we/they don't learn anything. Just emulate. Life is literally being drained out of the human race because we are afraid to be the creative, often mistaken, sometimes amazing people we were made to be. It's pretty depressing to behold.
1
The priest's job was to serve God, not whatever the Army wanted him to do (which was to keep the soldiers able to serve). Truly serving the soldiers under his care would be getting them out of a war that they and he believed made no sense, and this was beyond his power.
A religious leader's job is often to get us to put up with a situation that makes no sense or is obviously wring, because doing that keeps the religion in good with the state that can support or persecute it. And this use or misuse of religion is, of course, also part of God's plan which we of course do not understand but must support except when God wants us to oppose it. And around we go, doing the theodicy jig.
What was the creative thing to do in Vietnam? Some did what they had to do to survive and help their brothers and those for whom they were responsible survive, and then came home and tried to stop the mess, as John Kerry did. Some tried to remove incompetent officers from the battlefield. Some drank or smoked or collected enemy ears.
"A God who accepted the situation"? So the only God worth believing in is a puppet master who won't let people make mistakes they can, over eons, learn from, one who intervenes whenever people are about to make mistakes? Weird theology. I would find it easier to believe in a supreme intelligence who triggered the Big Bang and then sat back and watched evolution happen than a puppet master god. What a boring world that would be.
If as some of the bravest Saints of the Church have said, there is in fact a Judgment Day, I have no doubt that this man will get off the hook of his own conscience and that Christ will intercede for him. When I examine the way some of my nephews have been treated to unspeakable carnage by our interventions all over the Middle East and Southwest Asia--in nations with which our country has never officially been at war--I wonder just how easy God will be with the blind fools and bloodthirsty warmongers who sent them into this. When I remember the enormous pain that has been seared deep into their hearts and minds, I find myself wondering whether America itself has not utterly forfeited its right to call itself a righteous nation. Stand before God without fear or shame, Mr. Ehrhart. I have no doubt that Martin Luther, St. Augustine and St. Paul himself would declare Christ's mercy your very own.
29
The brutality of God and the cruel love of Jesus, described by an insular man caught between the great Wars. Earlier, a young beauty, a nightingale dressed in bling and finery singing to Jesus on TV.
Mr. Erhart has shown more courage than the majority of us have in our little finger, and he does not need to hear our reassuring voices encouraging him to stand without fear or remorse before God.
19
I didn't gather that he concluded what you are suggesting.
I liked this article. I hope things are OK with you now.
21
well-recalled, and well-written take; i remember being told then that the OT injunction was "thou shalt not do murder," - that would have been an interesting debate topic as well. "on this earth, God's work must truly be our own," ~JFK.
2
I deeply respect the anguish Mr. Erhardt must have experienced in Viet Nam and do not claim to have gone through anything like it. I had a very high lottery number and did not find it necessary to choose – or to wonder whether I had done the right thing.
No doubt his life would have been much different. But knowing the Lord is the incommensurable good: no trouble, no loss can be compared to the good of knowing him. Furthermore, we will be with him forever.
Many have faced similar choices, and continued to question their decisions decades later. That doesn’t mean God was not with them. There are ample reasons for trusting him despite our lack of understanding in some very important things. That is what faith is: knowing he is true, even when life is inexplicable. Or rather maybe, especially then.
3
Why can't you just face up to the fact that life is inexplicable and that your faith just covers up your fear of reality? It is cowardice with terrible consequences.
38
Ample reasons for trusting him? Name one. I agree that that is what faith is: believing without having any reason to do so. But then don't claim that there are ample reasons.
Wow. This had a real, and surprising, punch. I've made (many) morally cowardly decisions (and I know we all have), and it's not a new topic in life and literature, but this still affected me. Simple piece but strong.
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A moving story and one shared by many.
One doesn’t have to become an atheist to understand something is wrong with all this religious mumbo jumbo. God is not the One who sends anyone to war; man does that. God didn’t give us the intelligence to kill one another and everything around us to make room for us; man did. And confession is not a revolving door nor forgiveness a bag of tricks nor candy.
Thank you.
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If God is God he is not good. If God is good he is not God.
Saw that on a TV show when I was nine, from a witness in some lawyer show trial, and it is the most intelligent thing I have ever heard on the subject of religion.
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But one does have to be an Atheist if the truth matters to that person. There are no gods so your tortured explanations are unnecessary.
W.D. Ehrhart, I want to thank you for your service to our great country on this Veterans Day. I cannot imagine the horrors you experienced. I witnessed this war on nightly news TV as a kid and was thankful that I didn't have a big brother who was over there. All the best to you.
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Thank you for your memorable story and hopefully your life since the Marine Corps has been a good one. We are grateful for you and your comrades on this Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day.
www.thewaryouknow.com
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"Thank you for your service" is, I think, not moral or appropriate, given the things their commanders (and president and his "wise men") made them do.
I thank those who became CO's, refused to fight, or at least openly condemned the war. What if they gave a war and nobody went?
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Ehrhart: "Father, when I enlisted, I thought I was doing the right thing."
According to his book, Ehrhart had a 1A draft classification, so that sounds like a rationalization for a decision made under the threat of being drafted.
Ehrhart says much more about his thought processes in his book: "Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir".
2017-11-11 06:34:09 UTC
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After graduating from Harvard, my brother feeling deserted by his parents, took up the study of Ancient Greek. He did some social work and enlisted in the Marine reserves on Parris Island circa 1960. With a growing foreboding of the War with Vietnam, he was starting to become an historian and a visionary. What was it like, I asked, in young adolescence.
We set off in a truck and there was a lot of laughing. I remained silent. The following day, there was weeping from the same young men, unprepared for the drill sergeants, unprepared for what lay ahead.
A celebration of his 'Brilliant Career', a scholar of Middle Eastern studies, has taken place, but if asked about God, he might rise a finger to his lips, enigmatic as the Great Sphinx of Gismo.
Ehrhart shows courage. It takes a war sometimes to ensure peace, and this American salutes him and others who answered the call of their Country.
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The Vietnam War did not "insure peace." It perpetuated war, at the cost of over a million lives.
"The call of the country" was the lie by successive presidents, beginning with Eisenhower and ending with Nixon, that conducted an illegal and unnecessary conflict against the people of Vietnam, a massive war crime.
Ehrhart recognized this early on. That's the point of his article.
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Jerry Engelbach,
Point well taken, but Mr. Ehrhart and others were drafted, and once in the Marines or the Military, one does not get to choose the War that one is fighting for; for the call of one's country. One becomes the Universal Soldier.
While the war with Vietnam is taking place, while Corporal Ehrhard is having an exchange with Father Lyons, I am listening to our English teacher, a Catholic nun in France whose parents were missionaries in China. We do not have a history teacher, no access to the News, no T.V. nor radio. My friend from Laos and I are the outsiders.
What do I learn? Communism and The Domino Effect. Do I really understand this lesson that I am being given, does it make my friendship with my equally uninformed friend from Vientiane the wiser? No, and when the Student Demonstrations take place like fire across France, the school is closed, and I go 'home' to stay with my friend and her siblings in Paris.
Ehrhard knows that he and others are facing a losing battle, but he does not take off and desert his comrades. Ehrhard served his Country with a growing sense of shame, but honor.
Did this American here state that the War with Vietnam ensured peace? It is one of those mysteries in Life that we are able to maintain cordial relations with this Country today.
No regrets for Erhart but only roses for caring without faith in God.
Mr. Ehrhart—it’s not too late. God hasn’t gone anywhere. You were a boy in the most horrific situation possible. You’re still on this earth. God is waiting for you to turn to him. Thank you and peace to you.
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The New York Times series on "Vietnam '67" is one of the best histories of that war ever written.
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