On war, from the perspective of a confirmed pacifist

My family and I went to see the USS Cod this last weekend (a submarine). The experience was...interesting, fascinating, mostly disturbing for me. As I listened to the proud men who had been on this sub or who were at least talking about the sub, I became even more disturbed. They were "bragging" for lack of a better word about how many ships the sub had taken down.

As I listened, I could not help but be truly appalled. These were not "ships" that had gone down, these were people who had gone down. You can argue with me all you want about the need or necessity, about these deaths being "for a good cause" or even about a "just war", and I just will never buy it. These were people who were killed: daddies of little children, boys drafted to fight for something some of them didn't even understand, husbands, brothers, sons. For whatever reason, I am just not capable of separating people out into the categories of "friend" and "enemy" when we are talking about real people being violently and brutally destroyed because those with power decide to yield it and to play it out in the form of killing others through war.

That isn't to say that I think ideologies and politics are unimportant, or that I think we should ever ignore the injustices that those in power inflict on people. But I will never understand why we put so much money, energy, time, and commitment into figuring out new ways to kill and destroy people (often the very people being hurt by the injustices we are trying to confront and change) instead of putting all that money, time, energy, and commitment into figuring out other, more effective, less destructive and violent ways to handle political problems, injustices, etc. Really, if we spent a tenth the amount of energy using the amazing human brain power to figure out alternate solutions, I doubt we'd ever have to go to war and the images burned into my head of children burned with chemicals or explosions; of humans emotionally and mentally destroyed by the atrocities they have witnessed; of whole villages, towns, even cities destroyed would be no more.

How can a person be proud of how many people they've killed? How can we really believe that war leads to peace? Or that violence leads to peace? We've come to realize that beating on children does not get them to stop being violent, it only increases their chance of being violent. How can we not see this in the larger context of the world? Beating on other countries does not lead them to be peaceful, loving, accepting neighbors. It leads to anger, resentment and violent retaliation. Again, I'm not saying we should allow injustice. I am saying that we should use more than our anger and our hatred to overcome it.

The violence we inflict on others is simply beyond my understanding. I cannot comprehend how the call to "love your enemies" can ever include destroying them in war. I took the children to the USS Cod because it is a part of human history; a part I want them to understand, because I don't think we will find new ways to solve problems unless we understand the barbarism of the way we have solved problems in the past. But after hearing the pride in the men's voices as they talked about the people their sub had killed, I left feeling disappointed in humanity, scared for humanity, sad that I am part of this species in which the number of people killed is a source of celebration in any situation. I left feeling despair. I know that is not a helpful place to be, for myself or my kids. But that's what war does to people, whether you've lived it or not.