A CO Hero

On Veterans Day last year, Pete Peterson came to mind. Scrolling through social media, I saw all sorts of photos of fathers and grandfathers in military uniforms, tributes and thanks to heroes.  

Pete was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. I know him as an elder, wise friend, and respected member of the church I served. To jump to the end of our story, Pete spent most of his career as a social worker in Iowa’s rural, underserved public schools.

I asked Pete to meet to talk about his experience. While I knew he had been a CO, I really knew nothing about that chapter of his life.

Pete was raised in smalltown Iowa by a Lutheran father and a Mennonite mother. He jokes he spent Monday to Friday with Lutherans in school and Sunday at church with Mennonites. He looks back fondly on this “living in two worlds.”

“I think it was an advantage for me. It was introducing me to different perspectives. There was no animosity between the groups. People got along.” Some of Pete’s school teachers were World War II veterans. His favorite high school history teacher was a local leader in the American Legion. “It was a wonderful thing because people knew each other in a personal way that promoted friendships and neighbors knowing each other in a personal manner.” 

Even though he was growing up as a Mennonite, it was never assumed he would become a CO. “As a child I don’t remember ever being taught about war and the military. Mainly it was simple things like how we should treat others and that the purpose of life was to serve.” 

Pete recalls two influential pastors in his church that began to broaden his horizons in the early 1960s, mainly around racial justice. One was instrumental in the hiring of the first Black school teacher in the district. When finding housing for the teacher proved difficult, a family in Pete’s church offered him a room. “These were examples to me. I was noticing.”

In 1965, he headed off to Bethel College in Newton, Kansas — a Mennonite school. Of course, simultaneously the war in Vietnam was ramping up. 

“At Bethel I was forced to grapple with what it means to be an American alongside being a Mennonite and our long tradition of non-violence.”  He met teachers and made friends who became role models. 

“My friends and I debated among ourselves about pacifism and the alternative to going into the military. We had disagreements, but it allowed me to become clearer and to come to grips with my decision to apply for CO status.”

Like all young men in the US then, Pete had to register for the draft. Before long, a letter arrived telling him to report for a physical and to his county draft board. By this point he had decided to apply for conscientious objector status. 

His particular county draft board was, in his words, “easy to get along with.” They didn’t treat him poorly or skeptically. Was this because Mennonites were fairly common and recognized in that county? Was it simply the relational nature of rural Iowa? Pete doesn’t know. He does know, however, that many other draft boards were not so amenable. Some seeking CO status went to prison when their draft boards turned down their applications.

“I wish I had kept the little two page statement I shared with the draft board. I think I simply said that I objected to war and could not participate in the military. I also said that I was willing to serve my country in other ways.” 

It was the task of CO applicants to find their own alternative service. Pete proposed serving two years at Prairie View Mental Health Center, also in Newton, Kansas. “Many of the Mennonite COs who had served in mental health facilities during World War II were appalled by what they’d experienced. So a whole network of Mennonite mental health facilities sprung up after the war in response.”

Pete would end up staying at Prairie View for five years. It changed the course of his life. For four years, Pete worked as a psychiatric aide and in his final year he taught school to teenage in-patients.

As an aide he was constantly around professional mental health providers, and very much involved with patients’ treatment plans. His mentor had been an Army psychiatrist. The staff of Prairie View was full of young men like Pete, COs doing alternative service as aides or maintenance workers. He made many lifelong friends. Working with psychiatric patients, seeing their struggles and hearing their stories, widened his world. In college, he had prepared to be a school teacher, but when he left Prairie View, he headed to Kansas University to pursue a Masters of Social Work. 

I asked Pete, “We’ve all heard of Vietnam vets feeling ostracized and disrespected when returning to the US. Did you ever feel like you were criticized or excluded for being a CO?” 

“Not really. I’ve always been somewhat quiet about it. I rarely speak much about all of it, even though it’s a huge part of my life and set me on a career course. I didn’t know if people would understand. Might they be angry or might I seem self-righteous? Sometimes I would be asked about it, but no one ever attacked me directly for it.”

Oddly and beautifully, over time Pete became a listener, a safe place, almost a confessor, for veterans and military families. “With some work colleagues, as trust grew — they knew I had been a CO and I knew they had been in Vietnam or lost brothers there — they told me that they weren’t angry with me. They didn’t resent me. Instead they told me how they admired me and approved of what I’d done. Really, they envied me. They only wished that they had thought through some things when they were young. Family and traditions had pushed them in a certain way and they’d simply accepted it. They shared their stories with me. For decades, they’d been carrying shame and regret over what they’d seen and done.”

Pete is grateful that he came of age in a tumultuous time. It caused him to examine his values and direction in life. While there may be many other reasons to consider reinstituting a military draft in the US, Pete wonders if a draft might cause more young people to do like he did. Whether or not they would become COs, at least they would have to face some important matters about themselves and war and violence. “I would guess most people don’t even know what a CO is anymore, or that there is a long tradition of conscientious objection to war and the military.” 

Pete says he still struggles with boisterous military rituals and patriotic displays. “But I know they are important to others, and I don’t know how to express my convictions in a way that wouldn’t possibly offend others or draw attention to myself. I just stay quiet.” And does he consider himself a pacifist? “People ask what about this situation or that. I don’t know. How can we be certain how we’d respond in a hypothetical situation? I don’t have that sort of certainty.” 

Last week here on the Reformed Journal, Keith Mannes shared what I would call a lament on patriotism, “Thoughts While Burning My Flag.” What is genuine and modest patriotism? Is there such a thing anymore? Pete Peterson reminds me that Christians have been facing these quandaries long before the rise of MAGA. 

On Veterans Day, I wondered if we should also celebrate conscientious objectors. And if, in his own way, Pete Peterson is the sort of hero we should be honoring.