Catching Flack
By Monica Benderman Bruderhof.com, 8 February 2005

For the past several weeks, my husband, Kevin, and I have answered questions from reporters, and other interested citizens from almost every state in the union, and about eight foreign countries. After all of these interviews, I have a few questions and comments of my own.

What's gone wrong when a man and his wife are called cowards, all because that man has chosen to speak out against violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?

What's gone wrong when a man and his wife receive phone calls and emails from all over their country asking them to explain themselves, calling them cowards, wondering if they have ever read the Bible or studied the scripture, all because that man has chosen to speak out against war and violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?

What's gone wrong when a man's mental stability is doubted and his morality is brought into question by a chaplain (a supposed man of God), all because he has decided he cannot use a weapon to kill another person for any reason?

What's gone wrong when a man can walk into a military recruiting office, sign on the dotted line and find himself in a war zone two months later, without one question directed toward his sanity?

What's gone wrong when war is glorified, and fighting for peace is seen as cowardly?

People ask how my husband arrived at his decision. They are amazed that after all his years in the military he has come to the conclusion that he can no longer bear a weapon and go to war against another man..

People want to know if it was stress or PTSD which caused him to change his mind. They want to know what terrible things he saw that made him make such a drastic change. People want to know if there was thunder and lightning, an awakening, an epiphany. There was no bright light. There were no angels, no mighty bolt of thunder. There was only reality and facing the music with eyes wide open?

War all war is wrong. War brings nothing but death and destruction. War takes away all humanity, not only from the people who die, but also from the people who do the killing. War is insanity?

One man has stopped killing. Hope for more to do the same.