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November 2009 
What is your relationship to your life story?
Posted on Nov 17th, 2007
by 
TextMage
TextMage
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for November 17, 2007:
I got to go with Frankie, "I did it my way."
Since I was nine years-old I wanted to be a Marine. Everyone in my family and in my school, spent the next eight years telling me what a horrible Marine I would be, but I enlisted anyway, and spent my seventeenth birthday at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. I am NOT a Hollywood Marine. Even though, I was stunned, shocked and terrified, that birthday was one of the happiest days of my life.
I did real well in the Marine Corps; it is not difficult to excel at something one loves and I truly love the Corps. When it dawned on me that my real JOB in the Marine Corps was killing Other people and not bringing peace and democracy, I had a crisis of conscience. Almost two years later, I was discharged as a 1-O Conscientious Objector in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Those two years were a remarkable learning experience. Come to think of it, ALL the years since have been remarkable, though I ain't really learned much.
I have learned that: War is wrong. No war ever helped anyone, or ever saved anyone. We have the very limited freedoms we have today, in the so-called free-world, despite war and violence, NOT because of them. The idea that war and violence are connected to peace and freedom is a mental illness, fostered at first to maintain power-over-Others. Today the mental illness, we blithely call violence, is the dominant sickness on the planet.
WE ALL suffer from this mental illness to a lesser, or greater degree. Some of those who most resist violence, and believe themselves the most free from and of violence, suffer the most and are held strongest in its thrall. I include myself in this group.
The choice and the power to break free of the mental illness of violence and hatred is at once an enormous blessing and a very great burden, but it is always right at our fingertips.
Wanna join me in curing this planetwide mental illness?
Now how vain is that for writing one's own story? I sound like the "great and powerful" man behind the curtain, but I have no such nefarious plan.
I'm just a guy who believes he can help.
Since I was nine years-old I wanted to be a Marine. Everyone in my family and in my school, spent the next eight years telling me what a horrible Marine I would be, but I enlisted anyway, and spent my seventeenth birthday at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. I am NOT a Hollywood Marine. Even though, I was stunned, shocked and terrified, that birthday was one of the happiest days of my life.
I did real well in the Marine Corps; it is not difficult to excel at something one loves and I truly love the Corps. When it dawned on me that my real JOB in the Marine Corps was killing Other people and not bringing peace and democracy, I had a crisis of conscience. Almost two years later, I was discharged as a 1-O Conscientious Objector in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Those two years were a remarkable learning experience. Come to think of it, ALL the years since have been remarkable, though I ain't really learned much.
I have learned that: War is wrong. No war ever helped anyone, or ever saved anyone. We have the very limited freedoms we have today, in the so-called free-world, despite war and violence, NOT because of them. The idea that war and violence are connected to peace and freedom is a mental illness, fostered at first to maintain power-over-Others. Today the mental illness, we blithely call violence, is the dominant sickness on the planet.
WE ALL suffer from this mental illness to a lesser, or greater degree. Some of those who most resist violence, and believe themselves the most free from and of violence, suffer the most and are held strongest in its thrall. I include myself in this group.
The choice and the power to break free of the mental illness of violence and hatred is at once an enormous blessing and a very great burden, but it is always right at our fingertips.
Wanna join me in curing this planetwide mental illness?
Now how vain is that for writing one's own story? I sound like the "great and powerful" man behind the curtain, but I have no such nefarious plan.
I'm just a guy who believes he can help.
Access: Public
And help you have! Any heart that walks in peace…spreads the peace! :)
I'm just a guy who believes he can help.
I hope you appreciate how much you already have. Thank you.
Wow! I found your blog during a personal experiment. Your blog is EXACTLY the blog I needed to find today. I think I need to learn from you. Right now, I'm still doing the experiment, but I'll be back. In that regard, I'm sending you a friendship invitation before I leave your profile, so that I can try not to lose you! Thank you, and God Bless! :)
Holy moley, YOU ladies are indeed overwhelming. I just sent an email to Martha telling her that I am hardly fit to be anyone's teacher. I do love peace and consider myself a peacemaker; I changed MY name to Makepeace in 1994, but I have no special answers.
I don't know whether I even have the right questions. I truly am: Just a guy.
I am a member of a group called the Alternatives to Violence Project. AVP is really more like my family than an organization that I belong to. In my opinion, the series of AVP workshops and the training they provide can offer permanent change to anyone.
I am genuinely flattered, overwhelmed and humbled by your opinions. IF my gratitude is not strongly evident, it is because, for once, words have failed me.
Thank you all, RicH
Makepeace. I am the mother of a 15 year old whose dearest with at the moment is to go into the military. I'm not sure why. He says he thinks war is stupid. He says he disagrees with the war in Iraq very specifically and loudly. He generally comes to the aid of the underdog in every situation. What do you think is going on here? I am startled to read that you wanted to be a Marine starting at such a young age. When I asked my son what is it that has brought him to the desire to go into the military, he told me he has wanted to do so since he was 6 years old— news to me.
Anyway– if you have any thoughts for a mom who would like to see her son's future NOT include military service, I'm all ears.
Thanks.
-d