The poem, below, was written by Nicholas Peters just after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peters, who lived for some years at Grande Pointe, Manitoba, Canada, had emigrated from Russia in 1925 as a boy of 10 and had seen firsthand the horrors of revolution and war in his native country. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 and trained as a flying officer. He died on the night of March 7-8, 1945 after his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. The poem is from a collection of Peters' work entitled Another Morn.
The Peters family has given permission to have the poem published.
THE WARS WE MAKE
I gaze into the world with sorrowing eyes
And see the wide-abounding fruits of hate.
We fight, we say, for peace, and find
The wars we make
To be a spring of hate and source of future wars.
Is there no peace for man?
No hope that this accursed flow
Of blood may cease?
Is this our destiny: to kill and maim
For peace?
Or is this `peace' we strive to gain
A thin unholy masquerade
Which, when our pride, our greed, our gain is
touched too far,
Is shed, and stands uncovered what we are?
Show me your light, O God
That I may fight for peace with peace
And not with war;
To prove my love with love,
And hate no more!
Author: Nicholas Peters
Some ten years ago, my wife and I stood beside Peters' grave in an Allied war cemetery in Germany, with a huge sword on a cross backdrop, and grieved for him and the countless others buried there "row on row" in those graveyards of Europe. Quietly they lie now, sometimes friend and foe close together with so much of life still waiting to be lived.
Most of the last verse of Peters' poem is inscribed on his tombstone with "me" and "I" changed to "US" and "WE".
SHOW US YOUR LIGHT, O GOD,
THAT WE MAY FIGHT
FOR PEACE WITH PEACE
AND NOT WITH WAR.
I dream of the day when all of us, governments included, will listen to this soldier’s plea.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Yours sincerely,
Stan Penner
P.S. It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. And, somehow, even with all the problems we have on this planet of ours, I still believe that. It is my hope and prayer that the writings, below, can be of some help in stopping wars and keeping wars from starting in the first place. If not all, maybe you can use some of what I send.
“During Times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Isaac Asimov
"We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." Julia Ward Howe, who in 1870 issued the original Mother’s Day proclamation calling on women to rise up against war.
“If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say “No” to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses.” Louis Levoin
“There never was a good war, or a bad peace.” Benjamin Franklin
“War is the only game in which both sides lose.” Walter Scott
“War is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable.” Erasmus
“If you had seen one day of war, you would pray to God that you would never see another.” The Duke of Wellington
“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” Ghandi
“… I had finally become anti any kind of war for whatever reason.” Giles- much beloved (especially by the common soldiers) World War II British cartoonist
“I emptied the whole clip into him; then I cried.” Vietnam vet
“We cannot change history but with love we can heal the future.” Kim Phuc
“If you want to take revenge on somebody, you better dig two graves.” Chinese proverb
“It is a conviction that war is not an answer to human conflict any more than cannibalism is to human hunger.” Bruce Kent International Peace Bureau President at centenary reception, Berne, 1991
“War is not heroics nor is it pride/ It’s a shame to lose all those precious lives…/Where’s the glory? Never again! War Amps of Canada in their theme song, NEVER AGAIN
“As far as I am concerned, war itself is immoral.” Omar Bradley, U.S. five star general, known as the “GI’s general”.
“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today.” President John F. Kennedy
“The time has now come for man’s intellect to win out over the brutality, the insanity of war.” Linus Pauling, Nobel Peace Prize recipient in his book No More War
“Does the commandment ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ mean nothing to us? Are we to interpret it as meaning “Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,’ or ‘Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so’?” Linus Pauling
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
“There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.” General Grant
(All wars could cease if the above quote, alone, was listened to. As Winston Churchill put it, “To jaw, jaw, is better than to war, war.)
“The more I study the history of the world the more I am convinced of the inability of brute force to create anything durable.” Napolean, on St. Helena
“I have known war as few men now living know it. Its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.” General Douglas MacArthur
“Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share in the guilt for the dead.” General Omar Bradley
“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” President John F. Kennedy
“Today every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.” John F. Kennedy
“Old soldiers never die, but ninety-nine soldiers in a hundred are pitiably young, and they die in their millions, without beginning to guess why it is that life asks that of them. John Keegen, et al. in their book, Soldiers
“Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” Herbert Hoover
“The pioneers of a warless world are the young men who refuse military service.” Albert Einstein (from the book Peacemaking by Conrad G. Brunk)
“You can’t say that civilizations don’t advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a different way.” Will Rogers (Winnipeg Free Press, March 6, 2004)
"I'm sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying.” George McGovern during his 1972 presidential campaign
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address
“War is not only the denial of Christianity, but of all the most sacred things of life.” Major General John O’Ryan.
“War exhibits principally two characteristics that mark it as essentially devilish, namely murder and deception.” Phillip Mauro
“Die we must, kill we cannot.” Dr. Archie Penner, theologian, and author
“We kind o’ thought Christ went agin war an’ pillage.” James Russell Lowell
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Omar N. Bradley
“The churches have sacrificed the teaching of Jesus to exigencies of the state.” Dr. W.E. Orchard
“Shall Christians assist the prince of hell, who was a murderer from the beginning, by telling the world of the benefits or the need of war?” John Wesley
“War is as contrary to the spirit of Christianity as murder.” Dr. Adam Clark
“God is forgotten in war; every principle of Christianity is trampled upon.” Sidney Smith
“I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear `overcome evil with good.’ They don’t want to hear `those who live by the sword die by the sword.’ They don’t want to hear `if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.’ They don’t want to hear `blessed are the merciful.’ They don’t want to hear `love your enemies.’” Tony Campolo, on the war effort, Christian Week Nov. 27, 2001
“Love, not deadly force, is the Christian’s weapon.” John D. Roth
“We Christians teach against the great vices of the world; but sad to say, we almost overlook the greatest of vices, war.” Theodore Epp
“…violence can never bring peace, and 'putting the sword back in its place’ is admitting God's authority, and confirms God's love for us.” Rev. Chang-whan Kim (speaking to over a million people in Seoul in 1987), as quoted in the book, Ordeal and Glory The 30-Year History of Yoido Full Gospel Church, Korea (a book given to me in S. Korea last winter)
“…confessing the other person’s sins leads to war, while confessing one’s own, leads to peace.” Samuel M. Shoemaker
“I….call to everyone, Christians and the followers of other religions, to work together to build a world without violence, a world that loves life and grows in justice and solidarity.” Pope John Paul II, Kazakhstan, Sept. 2001
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” the Apostle Paul
“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Jesus
“Thou shalt not kill.” God
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Farley Mowat, now a naturalist, a writer, and a former
Canadian soldier who participated in the carnage of the Second
World War, writes as follows in his book AND NO BIRDS SANG: "Let
it be said then that I wrote this book in the absolute conviction
that there never has been, nor ever can be a "good" or worthwhile
war. So awful that through three decades I kept the deeper agonies
of it wrapped in the cotton-wool of protective forgetfulness. ...but
could not, because the Old Lie--temporarily discredited by the
Vietnam debacle--is once more gaining credence; a whisper which
soon may become another strident shout urging us on to mayhem.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!* Spawned in Hell long before Homer sanctified it, and goading men to madness and destruction ever since, that Old Lie has to be put down! (McClelland et al,Toronto, 1979, p. 195-196). (*It is sweet and seemly to die for one’s country.)
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Pierre Berton, a Canadian soldier, an officer, and also a
renowned author, describes the battle of Vimy Ridge in gruesome
detail in his book, Vimy. In conclusion he asks, "Was it worth it?"
The battle had cost thousands of limbs, eyes, and lives on both
sides. Even relatives had been pitted against each other in this
terrible slaughter and, much after the war, as an old German
soldier and the son of a Canadian soldier talk about this they
agree that the war had been "a terrible waste of human life brought
on by greedy people and tolerated for too long by silent
majorities." To the question, "Was it worth it?" the answer is
very clear- "No." (McClelland et al, Toronto, 1986, p. 307-308}.
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The following poem was written by a woman who walked over 25 000 miles for peace in the United States and Canada and who preferred to be simply called "Peace Pilgrim”. The poem may be published for peaceful purposes.
GREED
(A story of Men or Nations)
There were two men who had a dispute
Over a boundary line.
One said, "This land belongs to me!"
The other said, "It is mine!"
So they fought and fought like two wild beasts,
And oh, the blood that was shed.
Till one of the men was crippled for life
And the other man was dead!
Then the cripple lived in misery,
And he cried in his despair,
"What fools we were so greedy to be!
There was plenty for both to share!"
Peace Pilgrim
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