Agape Community

by David Capone

Eric Wasileski from nearby Deerfield, Mass., is the father of an eight-month old daughter, a former U. Mass student and current President of the Wally Nelson Chapter of Veterans For Peace. He was a former National Guard member for two years before joining the Navy. He served on a battleship in the Persian Gulf during 1998?s Operation Desert Fox as it launched 52 Tomahawk Missiles into Baghdad to a cheering chorus from his fellow soldiers.

Eric mentioned that, ?I have been in combat and felt in myself what it feels like to take another?s life.? Wasileski related that from the first moments in boot camp soldiers are desensitized. ?Training human beings to kill is a powerful thing.? On Christmas Eve, as our troops were singing Christmas carols and paying homage to the ?Prince of Peace, our ships were dropping deadly missiles on innocent Iraqi citizens. ?Not a day goes by that I don?t think of the Iraqi people I helped kill.? There was overall a total disconnect. I remember a sign nailed to a cross that read, ?Our God is better than your God.?

Eric said that prior to going to Iraq he was not particularly religious and was scripturally illiterate but while he was there he experienced a spiritual epiphany and came to recognize that every human being is a child of God. War however ignores this reality. Upon his return Eric began to study philosophy and joined the Quakers. Now Eric believes ?peace? is the organizing principle of life and nonviolence is the soul force that comes about by the power of love working through us. Calling that force nonviolent is like calling sunlight non-dark says Wasileski. It is using our souls to fight the enemy.

It is interesting to note, says Eric, that Jesus Himself lived under occupation yet continued to speak His native Hebrew and made no attempts to adopt the language or customs of the Roman invaders. When Peter became the first Christian to lift a sword Jesus said, ?Enough.?

Eric feels that the devastating result of all wars is poverty- a poverty of cash, poverty of spirit and most assuredly a poverty of community.

by David Capone

Patrick Resta, who currently lives in Philadelphia, served as a combat medic in Iraq from March to November 2004. He joined the military shortly after high school. ?My main motivation was always money for college and to get some training in the medical field. In New Jersey the National Guard pays for tuition, books, and fees to any state school. If you add on to that a few hundred dollars every month it sounded like a good deal to a 17 year old kid.? Even though he had reservations about enlisting Patrick rationalized that ?one man can?t make a difference.? So he enlisted.

His aunt and uncle were killed in the World Trade Center on September 11th and about three weeks later Patrick was called to active duty as part of homeland security.

He remembers vividly being sent to Iraq totally unprepared and unequipped. ?The personal weapons we were issued stateside were not the same weapons we received when we arrived in Iraq.? Hence the rifle Patrick had to use did not have his own personal sight settings. The Army issued armor was so inadequate that Patrick bought his own. The gas mask provided him did not fit. Soldiers had to revolt in order to receive an adequate supply of ammunition. Patrick said he felt with such inadequate tools that this administration did not place much value on either his life or the men that served with him as well.

?I was a medic so I witnessed first hand the horrors of war.? The main reason Patrick chose to become a medic was to treat and heal people and that is why he said he had such anguish and inner turmoil when he received orders from further on up in the chain of command that said he was only allowed to treat Iraqis that were in danger of losing life or limb. This represents a total disregard of the value and human dignity of our fellow human beings.

He too experienced a total disconnect from the truth. One example he recalled is when he would walk through a particular chow hall in Iraq that had a mural of the World Trade Towers with the words underneath inscribed ?Never Forget Why You Are Here?. On the wallpaper background of a fellow soldier?s computer were two pictures. One was of two Iraqi kids giving the Hitler salute. The other were photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.

Patrick is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against The War and is not reluctant to relate his experiences to the American Public. While taping a segment for the McNeil Lehr News Report of soldiers who served in Iraq the director stopped the filming of Patrick in mid sentence saying, ?you can?t talk about that.?

In summation Patrick said, ?In war people always lose.?