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End Mandatory Draft Registration

Authored by: Kate Connell

In March 2020, I was crying in frustration and disappointment. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) had just recommended to the US Congress that the Selective Service System (SSS), mandatory registration for a military draft, be expanded to include women. Was I angry because women were going to be in line to be drafted? That was part of it. But my disappointment, my sadness, was more about the missed opportunity the commission hadn’t taken - to eliminate draft registration for all.

On Tricks (May 2021)

Dangerously Comfortable

Authored by: Josh Von Kuster
My experience as a Navy pilot for a third of my life is fundamental to who I am.  The military has significantly impacted my experience as a Quaker. This is most evident to me when I compare the Quaker testimonies of Simplicity, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Peace with the military codes and traditions that have shaped me.
On War (January 2013)

Amor Fati

Authored by: Keith Scott Dickerson
Paradox defined: “Items and situations that seem mutually exclusive, yet somehow reflect upon each other, often creating a deeper, more nuanced truth, perhaps in dynamic tension, or complementing each other.” Like a Quaker serving in the military. I lived that paradox intermittently for seven years while serving in the reserves during medical school and residency. Then I lived it full-time during four years of active duty, which started when I completed my medical training in 2000. My first year of active duty seemed pretty benign, then 9/11/2001 happened, and my situation instantly became truly “military.” I faced impending deployment to “the sandbox,” the Middle East. 
On Weapons (January 2019)

Awakening to the Presence (abridged)

Authored by: Zachary Moon
I once lived with a cat named Francis. If he needed something, Francis would find me and invite me to help him. Regularly this invitation would come in the middle of the night when I was otherwise asleep in my bed. I would stir from my slumber to feel what would best be described as a gentle yet forceful kneading of my eyeballs by Francis’ paws.
On Home (September 2017)

Bullet Points

Authored by: John Lindsay-Poland
On the “open wound” of border between Nogales, Arizona, U.S.A., and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico (actually one city, divided), a steel-tube fence stretches thirty feet high and miles to the east and west – beyond our seeing. Dozens of people entered a restricted zone beside that wall and enacted a die-in last November, to remember 123 migrants who died in the nearby desert during the previous twelve months, as a result of U.S. “preventive deterrence” border policies. The die-in also honored the lives of people killed or disappeared by U.S.-trained, U.S.-equipped, military and police forces in Latin America.
On Weapons (January 2019)

Making Peace a Reality

Authored by: Diane Randall
OUR principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it; to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God; seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all. . . All bloody principles and practices, as to our own particulars, we utterly deny; with all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world world.
On Control (July 2019)