As a father, I must look at my son, and I must ask if there is anything I possess – any right, any piece of property, any comfort, any joy – that I would ask him to die to permit me to keep. I must ask if I believe that it would be meaningful – after his mother and I have loved each other and begotten him and loved him – for him to die in a lump with a number hanging around his neck. I must ask if his life would have come to meaning or nobility or any usefulness if he should sit – with his human hands and head and eyes – in the cockpit of a bomber, dealing out pain and grief and death to people unknown to him. And my answer to all these questions is one that I must attempt to live by: No.
How different might the history of this nation look if more parents thought like this - beginning with the 600,000 dead Americans in the War Between the States?
I highly recommend Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists by Bill Kauffman.
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