Pages tagged "military"

Dear Friends: Crimes against humanity are being committed by our government in our name and with our tax dollars: We are bombing people in seven primarily Muslim countries. We are killing tens of thousands of people in the Middle East (most of them civilians) and creating millions of refugees. We are spending one trillion dollars a year on wars and preparations for wars while cutting funds for almost everything else. We are spending one trillion dollars for modernizing our nuclear weapons and the missiles that carry them. We are threatening nuclear wars with Russia and Korea.

We are two Quaker women who raised our families in towns dominated by the U.S. military. Rather than shun the military and look away, we have lived our witness amidst strong military presences. One thing about being in a military town is that you can’t look away from how big a machine the military is. Each of us found that it was hard to raise a Quaker family in a community with a tiny Quaker presence and a huge military presence. It was hard for our children to find peer support with so few Friends in town. [pullquote]The military has certainly created plenty of occasions for us to talk about our testimonies and our practices in the face of headwinds.[/pullquote] Both of us have found that our situations have actually helped strengthen our faith, since we often have to live our witness when sustained by faith alone.