Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection on Veterans’ Day 2005

Jack Owicki
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Palo Alto, CA

“How many enemy soldiers did you kill in the war, Carl?” That was me when I was eight years old, asking a friend of the family who was babysitting me one evening in 1955, ten years after the end of World War II. My father served in the Ninth Air Force in Europe during the war but didn’t talk much about his experiences there. To my disappointment, he had never killed anybody. My babysitter had served in the Pacific theater, and I hoped to hear heroic personal stories of combat from him that evening.

War was an important influence on my childhood. I grew up mostly in Alaska, which at that time was still a frontier and had a very visible military presence. I remember playing in the abandoned fortifications for the shore batteries that defended our small village on the ocean in southeast Alaska during World War II. I remember collecting the metal links that created chains of bullets for .30 caliber machine guns. The Korean War had just ended, and the Cold War was on. Only half in jest, people said that they kept their eyes open for Russian submarines.

My bedroom was filled with plastic models of military airplanes and ships, and my favorite toys were little plastic soldiers.

I became a soldier myself fourteen years later, during the height of the Vietnam war. As I was being drafted, I chose instead a path of relative safety and joined the Air Force. I just barely avoided service in southeast Asia. My experience was more like that of a junior executive than a soldier. No combat, no heroism. My sacrifice for my country was a three-year delay in my career. For that I have received neither thanks nor censure. Considering the moral complexities of the situation, I think that’s appropriate.

I’m a bit happier with my more recent behavior. Though I didn’t take part in anti-war activities in the sixties, I did publicly protest the impending war in Iraq shortly before it was launched.

I’m convinced that aggression toward the Other (that’s Other with a capital O) has a lot of evolutionary hard wiring, whether it’s Stanford vs. Cal, Allies vs. Axis, or Christians vs. Muslims. Recognizing such impulses and dealing intelligently with them has been part of my journey from childhood to adulthood.

As I look back on that night with my babysitter now fifty years ago, I have some comprehension that I lacked then. “How many enemy soldiers did you kill in the war, Carl?” I had eagerly asked. He didn’t answer right away. He looked at me intently, but I think his gaze was turned inward as much as on me. Then he simply said, “I didn’t kill anybody.”