Category Archives: War & Peace

A Quaker Christmas Story: Candles In The Window

Christmas Eve, so called by the world’s people, was always a frantically busy time at the Woodhouse bakery. While the Woodhouse family, being Quakers, did not observe Christmas as a special day, almost all their customers did. That meant orders for dozens more pies than usual, plus hundreds of tarts and ginger cakes, and scores of extra loaves of their rich, thick bread.
So all the week before, the whole Woodhouse family were in the shop almost round the clock, mixing dough, sprinkling sugar and cinnamon, spooning out the cherry preserves, and tending the fire under the big brick ovens.
Abram did all of this, and more: he was often sent out with a basket full of pies or tarts for delivery to the better customers: beef and mincemeat pies to old Tilbury at the Golden Lion Pub beyond the square; or down the cobbles of South Street, through the narrow passage of the Ginnett and past the sturdy old Meetinghouse, with scones for the Blackburns and buns for the widow Kilburn. Sometimes he crossed the river Ribble to Giggleswick, where the vicar doted on Mother’s ginger cakes.
This evening he had been sent to the pub, where Tilbury wanted three more pies for his last round of customers, and it was from there that he had turned to climb the hill Castleberg.
Abram wouldn’t have thought of climbing Castleberg, especially in the cold, except for the candles–two in a window in every house and shop.
“What are they for, this time?” he had asked Father that morning.
“It’s a double illumination,” Father said, “for victories past and victories prayed for. George Cockburn’s troops burning Washington, DC is the victory past, and Wellington beating Napoleon before the end of 1815 is what they’re praying for.”
“That’s a fine thing to pray for, in what’s supposed to be a Christian country” his grandmother had snorted. Laying down her rolling pin, Gran had wiped sweat from her brow. “All it means is more dead soldiers, penniless widows and hungry orphans, from Paris to New York. Love thine enemies, indeed. A terrible, sinful waste.”
She sighed and picked up her rolling pin. With swift, expert strokes she flattened a thick lump of dough into delicate pie crusts. . . .

Survival & Revival: The Day The Smiles Are Well-Earned

This commemoration, while very personal, was not only about closure in Christine’s life. The fact that many women unknown to Christine or any of us showed up to join in as part of their own survival and revival, and underlining the fact of domestic violence as an ongoing issue in U.S. military culture.
And the 2007 event was not the end. Many more awful cases of domestic violence surfaced at and around Fort Bragg in my remaining years there (til November 2012). And the members of the Fayetteville NOW chapter, who had worked on this issue for man-years, and were powerfully moved by Christine’s witness, decided to make an annual event of laying a wreath at Beryl; Mitchell’s grave. They settled on early December, on or close to the day she was murdered.

And so they have. Each year since, in rain, in sleet, or cloudy and chill wind, they have gathered, sometimes few, sometimes more, and laid a wreath and taken both comfort and strength from this quiet ritual.

Quaker Hostage In Iraq: Tom Fox

The phone call came as I was driving home from a holiday weekend in Brooklyn, headed to Fayetteville NC. It was ten years ago today, November 27, 2005.
It was John Stephens, a younger Friend from Alexandria. I wasn’t expecting to hear from him. His message was a shock: our friend Tom Fox, who had been working in Iraq with a group called the Christian Peacemaker Teams, had been kidnapped in Baghdad the day before, along with three other CPT workers there.
The Iraq war was already close to me: I was director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, a Friends peace project near Fort Bragg. I had dealt with many soldiers who had been scarred but he Iraq war. I knew those who were or had been in jail because of their resistance to it. I had visited with troops who had fled to Canada to refuse deployment, and was following their fight to stave off being deported by a hostile Canadian regime.
But this was different. Tom Fox was a friend, and my friend. We had gone to meeting together at Langley Hill in McLean, Virginia, near CIA headquarters. His two kids were the same ages as my younger two, and were buds. He had been very kind to me when my marriage broke up in 1994.
And kidnappings of civilian journalists and humanitarian workers in Iraq was becoming increasingly common, and the fates of many hostages were gruesome. Some had been killed, shot before video cameras, even a couple beheaded.
Good God, I said to John Stephens. What are we going to do?

Norman Morrison: November 2, 1965

50 years ago, November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison, a Quaker from Baltimore, drove to the Pentagon, and walked across its broad lawns to a spot very near the office of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. McNamara was busy making decisions about the burgeoning U.S. war in Vietnam, a war that Morrison despised.

In one arm Morrison carried his daughter, Emily, age 11 months; in the other, a wine jug.
He opened the jug, poured the contents over himself, and lit a match.

The jug was full of kerosene. The flames shot into the air. Norman Morrison quickly burned to death. Emily was unharmed.

Why did he do it?

The next day a letter arrived addressed to his wife.

CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: Interview – Part 1

AFL: You were very intensely involved in the anti-Al Queda work after 9-11. The book tells of much derring-do & “operations” in Pakistan. Which of those was scariest? How does that all look from this point 13 years later?

John Kiriakou: It’s funny to me in retrospect that I never felt in any personal danger in Pakistan, at least not until I was supposed to go to Karachi near the end of my tour there. I just had a “feeling” about Karachi. I never liked the place, and I found something to do in Islamabad, rather than to head south. On the day I was supposed to arrive there, the Consulate was bombed and 11 people were killed. I should have been there that morning. I’m glad I wasn’t.
Pakistan-and-terrorThat was the only time that I actually felt fear. I remember thinking, “Wow. If these guys really want to kill us, they’ll kill us. They just needed a slightly bigger bomb.” Thirteen years later, I still have fond memories of the country, which my wife thinks is crazy. I enjoyed Pakistan, I like the Pakistani people. I love their food. The country is beautiful. But the place is a basket case. The economy is in collapse. And, frankly, (and this may be controversial), I believe that religion holds Pakistanis back economically.

AFL: Also in the book, you describe being invited (recruited?) to take the interrogation training for what turned out to be the torture program. And you then turned to an older Agency wise person/mentor (one of many colleagues you don’t name) for advice about what to do. That mentor evidently advised you to steer clear of it. . . .