Comments | patrickmurfin: MEMORIAL SUNDAY SERVICES AT THE CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH

patrickmurfin

MEMORIAL SUNDAY SERVICES AT THE CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH

May 26, 2008 02:02

We held our annual Memorial Day Sunday Service at the Congregational Unitarian Church yesterday. I nearly earned a Purple Heart covering the event. I tried to climb up on one of old pedestals around the monument on Woodstock Square that supported Civil War cannons before they were melted down for scrap in World War II to get a good angle for ( Read more... )

san juan hill, uss arizona, memorial day, unitarian universalists, liberty, joseph mccarthy, iraq war, tree of life, flaming chalice, charles dickens, woodstock square, vietnam war, grand army of the republic, bronson alcott, concord, rev. dan larsen, john lewis, rachel corrie

Comments 2

Prison anonymous May 26 2008, 10:47:59 UTC

Pat, you went to prison refusing to serve in Vietnam. And didn't have a very high opinion of those who did serve as I recall.... don't you feel honoring some of these guys a bit of contradiction? Do you at least mention this past to people? Old FWs like Virgil Vogel who went to prison in the 40s opposed to WWII as an Imperialist war, or Fred T. in WWI... it's kind of weird to honor Vets and no mention these others.

Re: Prison patrickmurfin May 26 2008, 17:00:25 UTC

I was indeed a draft resistor. I know what the inside of a prison looks like. In fact it was the same prison that Carlos Cortez attended for the same offence during World War II. But that does not mean I had a low opinion of the soldiers, not even then. In fact I got in some very heated arguments when I was on the SEED staff with the Stalinist contingent who were into “baby killer” rhetoric. Vietnam was being fought largely by draftees our own age, as opposed to the professional soldiers and over-age Guardsmen in Iraq. I knew those guys. It was a time when a lot of very young guys had to make very hard moral choices, often without much to go on. I made mine. They made theirs. For a glimpse at what I was thinking drop down a post and read the poem “Pictures, Poppies and Stars,” which originally was written for one of these Memorial Day services. I was also very close to Bart Savage and other founding members of the VVAW ( ... )