Actor and conscientious objector from California visits Peace Memorial Park to have his name engraved on the CO stone where his cremation remains someday will be buried.

RELOCATED FROM HILL TO THE CENTER OF THE PACIFIST MEMORIAL

The cremation remains of pacifists buried on C.O. Hill have been relocated to the center of the Pacifist Memorial.  VIDEO

The Life Experience School was founded on the principles of nonviolence and its establishment was the alternative service of the Founder, Lewis Randa, following his discharge from the military as a conscientious objector in 1971. C.O. Cemetery is where the founding mother of The Life Experience School, Neita DeMotte and late student Norman Nylund are buried. They were shining lights for The Life Experience School and the Peace Abbey during their lives and continue to inspire us to this day.

With the placement of the memorial stone honoring those who refused to take up arms, The Peace Abbey Foundation is extending this sacred space to others who consider themselves, or who are considered by their families, to be conscientious objectors.

Although the term conscientious objector has traditionally been related to men and women who refused to serve in the military, we have expanded this designation to include those who have renounced the violence of war and embraced the path of activist peacemaking. The stone includes the names of these conscientious objectors and stands as a living monument to the lives of these individuals who worked to create a more peaceful world.

The granite Memorial Stone for Conscientious Objectors has now been placed in the center of the Pacifist Memorial. At the top of the stone reads the words:

MAY HONOR BE BESTOWED ON THESE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS WHO WALKED THE EARTH SPREADING THE TRADITION OF NONVIOLENCE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS. 

The names engraved on the Memorial Stone include Pat Farren, David Dellinger, Wally Nelson & Chuck Matthei, Lynda Bock Weitz, Paramal Das, Ralph DiGia, Ann & John Rush, Patricia Watson, Zell Draz, Norman Nylund, Tom Lewis, Sheila DeSalvo and Howard Willard, Jr. 

This cremation cemetery is dedicated to individuals who either a) received the designation of conscientious objector from a draft board or at a military hearing, b) applied for the designation and were rejected, or c) embraced the tradition of conscientious objection as a personal commitment of their opposition to war. 

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste;
he has business in Cuba, business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle while he clinches the girth.

And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flicks my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast,
I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.
Though he promises me much,
I will not map him the route to any man’s door.

Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me;
never through me shall you be overcome.

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death.

Join the Conversation

[dc_social_wall id=”5245″]