To The Best Of Our Knowledge; Give Peace a Chance

From PRI, public radio international, it's to the best of our knowledge, I'm Jim Fleming. Nonviolence is a superior weapon than the weapons of violence. If you kill one murderer, you create ten murderers in his place. That's internationally renowned peace activist Satish Kumar, whose version of walking the walk has inspired people around the world, more from him later on. This hour, we'll give peace a chance. With violence in our schools, our homes, our countries, we examine an old concept, nonviolence. But can it work in a complex world? Mark Kerlansky thinks nonviolence could have prevented World War II. The pacifists and the nonviolent activists were the only people going around saying we have to do something to stop the fascists. Also a fresh look at the influential movie Gondy, and letters of faith in times of war. The country will always honor your boy because he gave his life for it, and it will also love and honor you for the gift of your boy,

sincerely, mod be fissure. Satish Kumar lives his life by the principles of nonviolence. He spent years as a Jane monk in India. In 1962, inspired by Gondy, Kumar undertook a peace walk with a friend to the four corners of the nuclear world. They went on foot with no money and stayed with anyone who would shelter them. Today, Kumar edits the eco -friendly film magazine Resurgence. His latest book is called The Buddha and the Terrorist. We caught up with Kumar at his Earth -friendly home in Devan England. According to Kumar, the Jane practice of nonviolence goes deep. Jane's practice nonviolence, more than I would say any other religion, most religions talk about nonviolence, but Jane's practice it. So, for example, as a monk, I would not bear any shoes in case

when I'm walking my foot is on any insect or any creature, and they might get hurt even with the weight of the shoes. I will not speak without having a little mask on my mouth so that any germs or creatures may be harmed. So, to avoid that, I'll wear a mask. And I will not eat at night, in case I cannot see some insects or creatures might go in the food. I mean, they go to a great length to avoid any harm to any life, not just human life, but any life. That's the kind of great commitment the Jane's make. Why did you leave Jane behind? I left Jane order as a monk behind, but I still adhere to the Jane principle of nonviolence in my life, because I think our civilization at present is very violent civilization, and therefore nonviolence is the most

important and most practical, as well as most idealistic principle, and I adhere to it now. And as an ecologist, as an environmentalist, I am not driven by fear of doom and gloom, fear of disaster, fear of global warming and climate change, fear of the end of civilization. I am driven by the principles of nonviolence, love of the earth, love of nature, love of life, love of people, love of all beings, and that is the principle of nonviolence, which is missing from our world. We are driven by fear, and fear is the root of violence. Is this what was on your mind when you went on your cross -country piecewalk? Exactly, nonviolence was in my mind, and that nonviolence was particularly in my mind in terms of nuclear weapons. Now, what kind of society do we have, which ends up

in producing and manufacturing and possessing nuclear weapons? Countries which call themselves civilized, are they really civilized once Mahatma Gandhi was asked, Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western civilization? He said, I think it would be a good idea. Now, that is something that civilized world, so -called civilized world, can create and possess and even use nuclear weapons. So, my journey started from the grave of Mahatma Gandhi, and took me across 8 ,000 miles through Pakistan, through Afghanistan, through Iran, the deserts of Iran, but also beautiful oasis of Iran, and then through Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Georgia by the Black Sea, and across to Moscow, and then across Europe to Paris, and then, of course, I had to take a boat to cross the English Channel from Kale to Dover, and then I walked to London, and then I met Bertrand Russell,

who helped me to cross the Atlantic, and I sailed across the Atlantic from Southampton to New York, and then I walked again from New York to Washington, DC, and I ended at the grave of John F. Kennedy. So, from the grave of Mahatma Gandhi to the grave of John F. Kennedy, I walked 8 ,000 miles in the cause of nonviolence, and I promoted nonviolence in every country, in every language, and I said to people that nonviolence is the most practical and most easy and most simple way to live with each other. If we commit to violence, we will never be happy. When you are kind, compassionate, generous, and nonviolent, you will be happy. Nonviolence is the source of happiness. This was my message. Tell me a little bit, if you will, about the people you met. Did you find that your message was well received? Did you get different? Did you get a different sense of who the people are in all of the places that you love? Yes, I did. I

did. Basically, I would say, a generality of people, ordinary people, were very sympathetic to my message. For example, I give you one story. I was walking by the Black Sea, sort of Georgia, and I met two Russian women at that time, Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, and these two women were working in a tea factory, and I gave them my leaflet, which was explaining the purpose of my walking, and the manner of my walking, and when they read the leaflet, they stopped me, and said, have you really walked from India? Please tell us more. Come into our tea factory, and talk to other people. We are very interested in peace and nonviolence. So I went in, and they gave me cup of tea, and suddenly, one of the women had a brain wave. She went out of the room, and came back with four packets of tea, and she said, these packets of tea are not for you. So I said, for whom are they? She said, I would like you

to be my messenger, and take these packets of tea, and deliver one to our premier in Moscow, the second one to the President of France, in Paris, the third one to the Prime Minister of England in London, and the fourth packet for the President of the United States of America in Washington DC. I was amazed with her imagination and her idea, and she said, please deliver these packets of tea with a message from me. So I said, what is your message? She said, that my message to these leaders of the world is, that if you ever get a mad thought of pressing the nuclear button, please stop for a moment, and have a fresh cup of tea from these packets. And this will give you time to reflect, to think, and to contemplate, that the ordinary men, women, children, animals, plants, rivers, lakes, oceans, they have done nothing to deserve

your nuclear weapons. So please think again, and do not press the button. Now that is an example of people's feelings, and I met one after another, after another, hundreds and hundreds of people who were genuinely fed up with all the leaders who devote so much money, so many resources, so much effort, so much intelligence, so much talent, so much creativity, into producing weapons of murder, killing, destruction, and pollution, and ecological disaster. So people are very, very ready. I think our leaders need to rethink and practice nonviolence. In the era of terrorism, you don't even know who it is who's attacking you much of the time, or you make up perhaps who it is. How do you use nonviolence to deal with the world we live in now? First of all, in order to practice nonviolence, you have to see, are we causing terrorism? Who is the cause of terrorism? If we are doing something

which is making people angry, if you take the Saudi Arabian terrorists, who were the perpetrators of dreadful violence on 9 -11, on the twin towers, that dreadful act of terrorism. But they were saying that why we have these foreign military bases in our holy land? Now that we have to accept that we are not nonviolent. We can just say that terrorists are violent, but we, those who are civilized people, we have even stronger weapons of violence than the terrorists have. So we as much believe in the weapons of violence as the terrorists believe. So I would say we have to look into the causes of terrorism before we can defeat terrorism. And then if you take the story of the Buddha, where Buddha meets a murderer, who is killing people left right and center, because he wants to get hold of the state, and he wants to take control of the

state. And Buddha goes and meets this terrorist. And the terrorist said, why are you coming in my domain? Are you aware that I can kill you without blinking an eye? The Buddha says, yes, I know. You can kill me without blinking an eye. But do you know who I am? I am the Buddha who can be killed and die without blinking an eye. Now that kind of fearlessness really changed Anguli Malah, the murderer, the terrorist at the time of the Buddha. And he surrendered his weapons and he became nonviolent. So I think if you want to defeat terrorism, it cannot be defeated by fear or by stronger weapons. It has to be defeated by compassion, by kindness, by generosity, and by negotiation, by dialogue, by understanding why these people are so angry that they are prepared to kill themselves to make a point. Because there must be some point that they are trying to make. It's a political problem. It's not just a

kind of terrorism of madness. This is a discussion that goes on and on and on in this country. And in the countries through which you've traveled. But it is not a simple one for people to accept. They want an evening out, a balancing, they'll say. And they also want to make threats so that potential murderers will not commit the acts. How do you place nonviolence against them? Nonviolence is a superior weapon than the weapons of violence. If you kill one murderer, you create ten murderers in his place or in her place. That is what we have seen. Look at Iraq. In spite of all the might of the United States and Great Britain, we are unable to defeat terrorism after four years and after killing hundreds of thousands of people and thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of British soldiers and people. And in spite of all that, we have not reached any state of defeating terrorism. That means that violence is an obsolete tool.

A kind of out -of -date tool to defeat any kind of terrorism or any kind of violence or any kind of injustice. We have to return to training of nonviolence. I think the United States and Great Britain and India and China and Russia and all the other countries should create a department of peace rather than department of war, ministry of peace rather a ministry of defense. And when you create ministry of peace and nonviolence, you spend more money creating and training and educating peace soldiers so that they can go in a conflict situation and resolve conflicts through dialogue, through negotiation, through diplomacy, through understanding these root causes of violence and terrorism. So if we can spend 5 % of our defense budget creating ministries of peace and departments of peace and training people to learn about techniques of nonviolence and techniques of peace I think will be

more successful than this endless billions and billions of dollars and pounds and euros and ends that we spend on armaments and military which are wasted. Just imagine in last since the Second World War how many billions and billions of dollars and pounds and euros have been spent on military and armaments. And what is the result? We have more hunger, more poverty, more pollution, more wastage and nowhere near anywhere peace in the world. Satish Kumar is a peace activist and the author of the Buddha and the Terrorist. We found him at his home in Devanigvand. What is it? Sora was sent to tell me I must break and cover the lettering. That's right. Everyone takes

their turn. It is the work of untouchables. In this place there are no untouchables and no work is beneath any of us. I'm your wife. All the more reason. It's you, C'mon. The others may follow you, but you forget. I knew you when you were a boy. It's not me. It's the principal. And you will do it with joy or not do it at all. A clip from the movie Gandhi. Gandhi is famous throughout the world for being in many ways the father of nonviolence. His leadership led to a peaceful transition in India from British rule to independence in 1950. David Attenborough's biopic Gandhi won eight Oscars in 1982. The movie's message and its visual splendor were too much for the academy to ignore. But how does the movie

Gandhi hold up today? writer Rahan Salam addressed that question in his article Meet the Hindustani Malcolm X for Slate magazine. He told Steve Paulson that Gandhi may have been about an Indian man, but it was a thoroughly western movie. It was certainly important in India, but it's a very unIndian movie when you think about the Indian cinema industry. Or even there's actually a little clip where Richard Attenborough is talking about his first conversation with Jawar Halal Nero. And Nero said to him, you can't actually cast an Indian actor as Gandhi. He actually suggested casting alleginess. So actually this is a movie very much in the style of Lawrence of Arabia. These kind of old epic movies that were not in if we were an Indian movie, it would be a musical. You'd have a lot of kind of saffron, you'd have a lot of elaborate dance sequences. Well, I mean, that's not entirely fair. But it's definitely an epic. It's a western epic that was very important at the time for a whole host of kind of complicated political reasons. You

just watched it recently. How does the movie hold up decades later? I think it's incredibly beautiful. You can tell that enormous sums of money were spent. And the other neat thing about it is that these days, such a movie would surely be made with CGI. You're not going to generate a crowd of hundreds of thousands by actually putting ads in the newspaper and expecting people to show up. And that's exactly what they did. And though that sequence only lasted for, say, five minutes at the opening of the movie, the recreation of Gandhi's funeral is truly one of the most remarkable feats in movie history. And just kind of hearing about it and some of these DVD commentaries. I mean, it's quite amusing. Ben Kingsley talking about how mischievous Indians were throwing battle nuts and flower petals at his face, hoping to get him to react. And he stoned facedly, failed to do that. And if they eventually gave up, it tells you something about India, I think, that they did have that kind of streak. Of devil make hair,

playfulness. And I don't think that today in India, you could get 400 ,000 people to show up for free. I also don't think you'd be able to close off a road. I mean, I think that people would be mightily angered by the thought that a bunch of Hollywood types were going to come in and shut down a major thoroughfare. Now in your essay, you say that what you especially like about the movie Gandhi is the first part. Before he became the Mahatana, before he became the great soul. He's sort of this tough guy who is willing to get knocked around. Are there particular scenes that you like? Yeah, I mean, there's one scene, for example, very early in the movie where Gandhi outraged by his treatment at the hands of a couple of fellows on a railroad car. He has a public gathering to which only a handful of people actually end up showing up. And he burns this pass card that he as an Indian is obligated to carry around. And he has various comrades do the same thing. And he does this despite the fact that these very tough South African

police officers are actually beating him. They're beating him with sticks. They have no hesitation about hitting him directly in the face. And he just keeps getting up, stumbling up, trying to get back on his feet to burn more of these pass cards. That is a powerfully moving scene. Ladies and gentlemen, we have asked you to gather here to help us proclaim our right to be treated as equal citizens of the empire. The symbol of our status is embodied in this pass, which we must carry at all times, but which no European even has to have. The first step towards changing our status is to eliminate this difference between us. We ask you, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, to help us light up the sky and the minds of the British authorities with our defiance of this injustice. We will now burn the passes

of our committee and its supporters. We ask you to put your passes on the fire, look at the human mission. Those passes are government property. It's amazing to think that this is something any human being could do. And it's the kind of image that we associate in America with the civil rights movement. It's the kind of heroic behavior that we've seen in South Africa and elsewhere. It's the kind of thing we hope to see in the Middle East. But when you think about the kind of courage it takes to face down authority and its meanest, ugliest face, it is truly extraordinary. And then there's another pivotal scene when Gandhi is literally thrown off a train. Oh yeah, that comes right at the top of the movie. And it's interesting because how could he have been in that scene? Surely he was in his very early 20s. He's a very smartly dressed guy. And he's at the very beginning trying to have a kind of thoughtful intellectual conversation

with a porter, which goes to show what an eccentric he is in a good way, I think. And then these guys come in and he tries to use logic. You know, he's trying to employ, you know, kind of mental rhetorical jiu -jitsu. And it's compelling to watch. What are you doing in this car? I have a ticket. A first -class ticket. How did you get all of it? I sent for it in the post. I'm an attorney and I didn't have time. There are no colored attorneys in South Africa. You answered where you belong. I'll take your luggage back, sir. No, no, just a moment, please. You see? Born as K Gandhi, attorney of law. I'm on my way to Pretoria to conduct a case fund -engine trading fund. Didn't you hear me? There are no colored attorneys in South Africa, sir. I was called to the bar in London, and enrolled at the High Court of Chancery. I am, therefore, an attorney. And since I am in your eyes colored, I think we can deduce that there is at least one colored attorney

in South Africa. Smart bloody, careful. Throne. Just move your black arse back to third class. I'll have you thrown over the next station. And I always go first class. I've traveled all - What do you think of Ben Kingsley's portrayal of Gandhi? Well, I think the consensus opinion, and I think the consensus opinion is right in this case, is that it was one of the most truly extraordinary performances in movie history. That sounds like hyperbole, but I think it's exactly right. The guy was in his mid -30s. He very much dedicated himself to the part. I mean, he stood out on the hot sun for hours, days at a time, in order to get the tan that made him look so Gandhi -like. He lost a tremendous amount of weight. And again, here's a guy in his mid -30s who becomes, he transforms himself into

a daughtering, elderly, grey -haired, half -toothless man, wearing a loincloth that Ben Kingsley, I've been let to understand, actually made himself. So, I think that, you know, when you talk about dedication, I mean, it's hard to imagine many actors doing that. What about the movies take on the whole independence movement in India? Does it get it right? Does it get it right? I think in the broad sense that India's independence movement intended to do something very good. They encountered a lot of very tough obstacles. There was a lot of tough wrangling over what to do with some, you know, kind of deep problems internal to India, namely the kind of communal divide between Hindus and Muslims. And I think that for a five or six -year -old, I think that it does a pretty good job of portraying the relevant issues. I think that for anyone else, however, it gives you a very skewed picture of what was at stake. I think what the movie does is

portray Gandhi and Nehru as good guys and someone like Jinnah as a bad guy. When the truth is, you know, a lot more complicated, Jinnah thought that he really was protecting the interests of the Muslims. Now, granted in the movie, you see him say that he cares about protecting the interests of the Muslims, but you also see him say that he doesn't care about the likelihood that millions would die or that other Muslims would be stranded, which is just weird. Well, and you're also suggesting that Richard Attenborough in making this movie had a particular agenda. It was to spread the message of nonviolence. I mean, essentially, to portray, I mean, to focus on Gandhi, the peace activist. And in fact, did the movie have a huge impact on peace movements around the world? Oh, I think that's absolutely right. And I think that in that regard, Attenborough was incredibly successful. You know, when I listen to Attenborough in interviews, he just strikes me as a very thoughtful person. And even when talking about Gandhi and the

different kind of historical problems many people have had, you know, you get the sense that he really did want to tell a story that was moving and compelling, and that would spread of what he saw as Gandhi's message of nonviolence, of peaceful resistance to horrible injustice. And, you know, just the effect that the movie, I've been let to understand, had on activists in South Africa. I mean, that's reason enough to kind of hardly endorse the movie and to celebrate it. Well, right on. Thank you. This has been interesting. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. So what do you think about the movie Gandhi? Is it

inspirational or historically inaccurate? You can send us an email through our website at ttbook .org. It's always nice to hear from you. Coming up later, we'll meet a writer who says nonviolence would have prevented the world's great wars. I'm Jim Flaming. It's to the best of our knowledge from PRI, Public Radio International. Mark Kerlansky is the author of nonviolence, 25 lessons in the history of a dangerous idea. In the book Kerlansky examines the history of nonviolence and looks at history with a

revisionist's eye. He told Steve Paulson that in its early years, Christianity was known for nonviolence. Christianity was, for its first 260 years or so, a completely nonviolent religion, one of the most nonviolent religions that history has ever seen. You would not participate in government because governments were inherently violent and it would be said that participating in a government would be an un -Christian thing to do. This all changed when Constantine embraced Christianity and suddenly he's going to battle in the name of Jesus Christ and he's putting crosses on weapons, the symbol of Jesus on a weapon is a complete contradiction. This was a contradiction that the church struggled with and people who rejected it who referred to the original teachings of Christ became monks, which is why the Catholic church doesn't support monasteries and they are expected to earn their own way.

Saint Augustine took it one more step. He gave it an intellectual underpinning. He said that it was not necessarily un -Christian to go to war, that there were certain wars that were just. Now, the problem with this is that everybody fights just wars. I mean the Nazis could explain to you why their war was just. You know, everybody's wars just because the other side are evil. So you were saying that all wars by definition are immoral, are wrong. No matter what someone else has done to you, you should never go to war. You should never engage in armed conflict. Yeah, I don't think it's surprising that someone would find the institutionalized wholesale slaughter of human beings to be immoral. Unless it's used to stop a greater evil. I mean, that of course is the very definition of a just war. Well, I mean, what is a greater

evil than the wholesale slaughter of human beings? Well, let's take the obvious case. Hitler is starting to take over Europe, is marching through various countries. And if you don't raise an army and go to fight him, then he will conquer various countries, subjugate those people and perpetrate all kinds of evil. Well, I mean, at the point at which Hitler was taking over countries, the other countries of the world had been botching this thing for years. They had basically been supporting the Nazis. They had been supporting German industry. They had been investing in it. American and British industry invested in German industry and helped build the war machine and the economic revival that gave Hitler the strength to do this. And then at the point at which he did it, the same countries said, well, we have no choice but to go to war with them.

Well, it may very well be true that at that point they had no other choice but they had lots of other choices before that. I think that quite often these other choices are not exercised because governments always, they have standing armies, they have weaponry. And this is the option they're most prepared to do and the option they feel most comfortable with. Well, let me just play out this notion of what might have happened once Hitler came to power. He goes to war in various European countries, he starts taking them over. It would seem that if Britain, if the United States, if Russia didn't go to war against him, he would have taken over Europe. I mean, it's quite obvious. Yeah, but you see what you just said, you said, Hitler came to power, he goes to war. You've just left out six years. Hitler came to power by more or less vaguely democratic means and by the way, using the threat of terrorism,

burning down the Reichstag, and spent a number of years building up German industry and German armaments and consolidating his power. Now, during those years, you would have thought that nations like the United States and Britain and France would have been doing everything they could to economically isolate Germany and make it impossible for them to build this up. And to keep this new regime unsuccessful and unstable, but they didn't, they invested in it. Granted, it would have been far better for them to try to isolate Germany economically and politically, that doesn't always happen. So then what happens when a country like Germany with a truly horrible leadership does gather the might to be able to invade other countries? Why did everybody sit back and allow Germany? You know, the

pacifists and the nonviolent activists were the only people going around saying we have to do something to stop the fascists. Like the Germans, they were just talking about the communist and the communist threat. It's important to understand the whole phenomena of the Holocaust, which I think is pretty clear was the great crime of the Nazis. What don't we understand about the Holocaust? That World War II did nothing to stop it and that it started as a result of World War II. The final solution, turning concentration camps into death camps, all of that took place after the war had started, after the Nazis had completely given up on any semblance of civilization in the world because they were isolated in war. I mean, things changed immediately for European Jews when the war started. There were no death camps before the war, but once war broke out, then suddenly Jews were being exterminated. That is correct, and

the plan for the extermination of Jews wasn't launched until after the war started. The whole argument about World War II stopping the Holocaust is a little bit like the argument of the Civil War ending slavery. It did end slavery, although it didn't give freedom to southern blacks. That was never the intention of the war and nothing was done in the war effort to end slavery. Nothing was done by the Allies in World War II to stop the Holocaust, although they were repeatedly asked to do things. They refused to interfere with concentration camps, to bomb train tracks, to do anything. They said this is not part of the war effort. Churchill and Roosevelt, not to even mention Stalin, were extremely concerned in not appearing to be fighting the war just to help a bunch of Jews, which is what the Nazi propaganda machines said they were doing. I want to pick up the analogy you just raised to

the Civil War. I think historians would generally agree that the North didn't go into the Civil War to try to free slaves, but can't you argue that over the course of the war, that actually became one of the goals and certainly Lincoln talked about the absolute necessity of offering the slaves as the war was moving along and as Lincoln's own thinking about racial matters changed. Well, I'm sorry to contradict you, but it was Lincoln who said in 1862, or possibly even early in 1863, fairly far into the war, he said, if I could save the Union without freeing a single slave, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some slaves and not others, I would do that. Lincoln was a very able politician who was very concerned about slave owning border states that sided with Union and not offending them, which is why when he finally came out with an emancipation proclamation, which he felt that he had to do, he felt that he had to give some higher meaning to the

slaughter that was taking place, especially after Gettysburg. He came up with this very carefully drafted document that freed absolutely no one, because it declared slaves free that were in Confederate controlled territories. So in other words, we hereby free the people, we have no ability to free. But wasn't one of the byproducts of the North winning that war? All the slaves were freed, and the South slavery was abolished. That was a wonderful thing, one of the great triumphs of American history. Yes and no. What you say is true, however, there is the question of enforcement, who was left to enforce this, an army of occupation at the end of a bitter war. People who were so hated that they had no chance of working with this southern society, and in the end didn't really bother. And so slavery was abolished in name only.

Are you saying that the status of black Americans in the American South in 1870 was no better than it was in 1850? I'm not sure if 1870 is the right date, but yes, they were working for no money, they couldn't vote, they had no control over their lives, they had no rights, which is why Martin Luther King, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said, someday we will say, God Almighty, thank God Almighty, we are free at last. Someday, still hadn't happened in 1963. Mark Kralanski is the author of Non -Violence, 25 Lessons in the History of a Dangerous Idea. He spoke with Steve Paulson. Coming up next, letters of hope and faith in

Time of War. I'm Jim Fleming, it's to the best of our knowledge from PRI Public Radio International. Andrew Carroll is the founder of the Legacy Project. He started the project as a means to preserve the personal experiences, insights and stories of a nation at war. The project, which publishes letters from sons, daughters, fathers and friends who experienced war and its effects, has resulted in the best -selling book, Letters of a Nation. The newest book from the Legacy Project is called Grace Under Fire, Letters of Faith in Times of

War. Carroll says the project goes beyond the concept of war. I really do not see this as a war project or Grace Under Fire as a book about war. It's a book about much more timeless issues that these letters confront. I mean, this is one of the oldest theological questions there is. Does God exist? Where is God in the midst of such widespread suffering and death and destruction? And for me personally, I think it was a reminder that there is so much beauty in the world that we can't overlook, and so it is a question of balance. Of course there's evil, of course there's some terrible things that happen, but there are so many people working to write that balance. You know, that letter leaves you with a good feeling about all of this. You say that this was not created because of a feeling that you had to have war letters, and yet a lot of these letters do have to deal with combat, with the way in which these men and women react to the situation they're in. There's that old saying that there are no

atheists in a fox hall. Is this book your answer to that? I've never liked that phrase for two reasons. One, it's just not true. I've read letters by atheists. We sort of quote from some of them, and there are certainly people who when they see a civilization in a ravel, you think of the troops who walk through the burned out cities, bombed out villages of World War I and World War II, they did lose their faith. And I've talked with some of these veterans, and they've never regained it, and I certainly understand that. I can't imagine any human being going through that, not being impacted by it. But the other reason why I don't like the phrase, there are no atheists and foxholes, it almost implies that those who do profess a sense of faith only do so, really almost as a kind of deal -making with God. And so one thing that I've been contemplating, and it's again why I love these letters because they raise very profound issues. The troops confront this too, and there are many reasons why there is, I believe, genuine faith and wartime. There are two correspondences in the book, one letter written in World War I by a young private named Walter Bromwich, and the second written 90 years later, it's an email by a doctor named Scott Barnes who's in Iraq.

And they almost verbatim ask the same question, of where is God amidst this? Dear Reverend, here I sit in my little home on the side of the hill, thinking of the little church back home, wondering how you were getting along. Don't think I am downhearted because I am writing you, but it's a queer thing I can't explain, that ever since I volunteered, I felt like a cog in a huge wheel, and the cog may get smashed up, but the machine goes on. And I know I share in the progress of that machine whether I live or die, and that seems to make everything all right. Except perhaps when I lose a pal, it's generally one of the best, but yet it may be one of the worst, and I can't feel God is in it. How

can there be fairness in one man's being maimed for life, suffering agonies, another killed instantaneously, while I get out of it safe? Does God really love us individually, or does He love His purpose more? What I would like to believe is that God is in this war, not as a spectator, but backing up everything that is good in us. He won't work any miracles for us because that would be helping us to do the work He's given us to do on our own. I don't know whether God goes forth with armies, but I do know that He is in lots of our men, or they would not do what they do. Yours sincerely, private Walter T. Bromwich, company A, six US engineers, American expeditionary forces. There's also some anger in here. I was thinking about

the letters between two brothers in the Civil War facing each other on two different sides of this battle. The one I think he's trying to say to his brother that he still loves him, but he's so angry about his brother for joining the Union Army that he almost can't bear it. One of the things I love about these letters is just the stories they tell. I mean, there's so many riveting accounts in these, and so many historic moments, and with the Civil War, we think of it as the Brothers War. And here literally, you have the only two brothers, Thomas and Percival Draiden, who faced each other, who commanded troops on opposing sides. Now, early in the war, when Thomas, who was, they're both from South Carolina, and Thomas stayed there, Percival moved to the North and was serving in Pennsylvania, and he felt loyalty to his new land and to the United States of America. And so, right before they had their big split, Thomas, who's sympathetic with the Confederacy, writes, Farewell, Percy. And however much we may differ on the present issue, let no unkind word escape to lacerate the heart of the other. Defend the soil of Pennsylvania, if you

will. Then you and I will never meet as armed foes, cross her southern boundary with hostile purpose, and we shall face each other, as brothers never should. Love to my poor, dear old mother, and may God bless and sustain her at this terrible moment, your affectionate brother, Thomas F. Draiden. You've read from women who wrote about their husbands who were in the war, but there is, of course, in your book also a collection of letters from women who fought or women who served. There was a nurse, for instance, serving during, what was it, World War One? She wrote a letter, you always think of the commander of the troop writing a letter to say your son died, but in this case it was a nurse writing to describe the last day of a young man to his mother. It must have been a horribly difficult thing for her to do, but clearly it was effective because the mother saved it. Yes, Maude Fisher was an American Red Cross nurse who cared for a young soldier, and this is what's so tragic.

He had survived the war, but then he passed away because the influenza epidemic that killed literally tens of millions of people around the world. And so this nurse realized that the mother was just going to get a very perfunctory telegram or some sort of notification of the government saying that your son has died, and she wanted to write something more personal. My dear Mrs. Hogan, if I could talk to you, I could tell you so much better about your son's last sickness and all the little things that mean so much to a mother far away from her boy. Your son was brought to this hospital on the 13th of November, very sick with what they called influenza. This soon developed into pneumonia. He was brave and cheerful though, and made a good fight with a disease. Several days he seemed much better, and seemed to enjoy some fruit that I brought him. He did not want you to worry about his being sick, but I told him I thought we ought to let you know,

and he said all right. The last time I saw him, I carried him a cup of hot soup, but he was too weak to do anything but taste it and went back to sleep. The chaplain saw him several times and had just left him when he breathed his last on November 25th at 230 in the afternoon. He was laid to rest in the little cemetery of commerce and sleeps under a simple white wooden cross among his comrades, who, like him, have died for their country. A big hill overshadows the place, and the sun was setting behind it just as the chaplain said the last prayer over your boy. The country will always honor your boy because he gave his life for it, and it will also love and honor you for the gift of your boy, but be assured that the sacrifice is not in vain, and that the world is better today for it.

From the whole hospital force, except deepest sympathy, and for myself, tenderest love in your hour of sorrow. Sincerely, mod be fissure. It's just a really compassionate sentiment from one stranger to another, and it's something I wanted to really capture in the book, and really to also bring focus to how much women have served in these different conflicts. In all of this, you have these wonderful letters written by terrific people. Doesn't make you feel any better about war, does it? Oh no, and this is not a pro -war book. I never want these letters or emails to glorify something that by nature is horrific, and this is something these troops confront. One of the reasons I'm so affected and impacted by their words is because they, more so than anybody, I think, write about the importance of peace and of coming to a point

where we see reconciliation and we see peace. And one soldier comes to mind in particular, a young man named Joseph Portnoy, who's actually become a dear friend, and he exchanged a series of letters we have a few excerpts between his fiancee and himself just after he volunteered to serve after World War II. And he wrote in one piece, he gets very philosophical in his letters, Joe wrote this to his fiancee Ruth, who was back in the States, and Joe had just gotten back from a Yitzker service. He says, the rabbi, again, gave us the theme of returning to God in everlasting life. It sunk deeply and made me realize that the toughness of war can easily be erased once we return home to our churches and synagogues again, and begin building the stones of civilization over the callous savagery. There will be a successful returning, don't fear darling. And this sentiment is echoed in a letter by another Jewish soldier who had just had a Passover sater, and he had done it on ship with other troops from different faiths, and they were talking about the sense of all coming together.

Dear Mother and Dad, the ghosts of thousands of years of Jews were with me tonight. From the first refugees of the Bible's fascist Pharaoh through two destructions of the temple and through ages of wandering and persecution, they were with me tonight at the strangest sater I've ever had. When I look back upon all the saters I've sat at, in my own home with my beloved family, and in strange cities with friends, I wonder if I could have ever dreamed that I might be spending a Passover on a US warship, bound on a mission of war, or perhaps I should say a mission of peace, because we are fighting for the peace for which each Passover we lift our voices in prayer. One enlisted man, ships cook third class, and myself are the only Jews aboard the Beaumont, but we decided to spend the Passover with the sater. At our last port of call we obtained two boxes of matzo, and a hagada from the chaplain. We had several guests, the pharmacists mate first class, a Protestant, and other ships cook whose Catholic, and two stewards mates who are colored baptists, as well as the officers steward. I read a prayer which has been

repeated for centuries, and today more loudly than ever. May he who make a peace in his heaven's grant peace on us, and all Israel, and say ye, amen. But if I was startled by the modern parallelism, it was the myriad of ghosts of long dead Jews, visiting me tonight, who make me feel that this prayer for peace need not be repeated year in and year out. We have the answer in our power now. The United Nations can make this victory one of everlasting peace, and build a world in which Jew and Gentile, white and colored, live in peace, harmony, and security, just like we have different faiths and races sat down at sater tonight. Good night dear parents, God bless you, all my love, sit. A reading from the book Grace Under Fire, letters of faith in times of war, edited by Andrew Carroll. Thank you to Michael Leland, Vicki Nahn, Norman Gellaland, and Todd Witter for their readings. If you'd like to send your war letters to the Legacy Project,

you can find a link on our website at ttbook .org. It's to the best of our knowledge, I'm Jim Fleming. To the best of our knowledge is produced at Wisconsin Public Radio. This program was produced by Veronica Rickard, with help from Mary Luthinigan, Charles Monroe Kane, and Strain Champs and Doug Gordon. Steve Paulson is our executive producer, Carillo and is our technical director. You can buy a copy of this program by calling the radio store at 1 -800 -747 -7444. Ask for give piece of chance, number 513 -A. If you have questions or comments about the program, you can send us email through our website at ttbook .org. We

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