Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire

 

 

November 9, 2003

 

 

“Do We Need Another Shays’ Rebellion for the Veterans?”

 

 

Rev. Kathy Duhon

  

           

            The American Revolutionary War began in 1775 on the eastern side of Massachusetts.  In 1781, the land war ended, and the first veterans of our new nation began going home; the final treaty was signed to end the war in 1783.  In 1786, the first American rebellion began in Western Massachusetts, led by Revolutionary War veterans such as Daniel Shays who’d been at the battle of Lexington.

            Like the Revolution, Shays’ Rebellion had something to do with taxes and justice, but the situation was more desperate.  Most of the farmer-veterans who came home from the Continental Army, not having received much compensation, some of it being worthless currency and broken promises, found it hard to pay the rising taxes that the government was imposing to make ends meet after the war.  Foreclosures and seizures of property were common, as well as imprisonment in debtor jails. 

Daniel Shays lived for a time in Great Barrington, but he was from Hopkinton and farmed in Pelham.  Shays’ Rebellion was actually begun by other men and was concentrated around Springfield, Northampton, and Worcester, but a few significant incidents happened in Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and Sheffield, and were typical of the two year rebellion.  In September 1786, a crowd of about 2000 surrounded the Great Barrington Courthouse to disrupt the court, essentially to stop it in its business of foreclosing properties.  As happened in other such incidents, the militia was outnumbered – often part of the militia was on the side of the insurgents – in this case, the chief justice asked the militia to split up into those who wanted the courts to sit and those who didn’t – and so the rebel side gained a couple hundred more in support.  The courts were disbanded.  Three judges were taken by the protesters and compelled to sign a document that they would not act “until grievances were redressed”.  Another judge resisted and was allowed not to sign it.  Then they overtook the Great Barrington jail and released the prisoners who were there for debt.  The chief justice, Doctor William Whiting, commented “I have never heard anybody point out a better way to have their grievances redressed than the people have taken.”

A few weeks later they disrupted another local court session.  In February 1787, a small group of the rebels pillaged homes in Stockbridge, took prisoners and headed for Great Barrington, led by Lenox resident Perez Hamlin.  Great Barrington had been warned, and folks started hiding their valuables, while a group of residents headed for Sheffield to merge with Colonel Ashley’s group to stop the insurgents.  The farmer/veteran rebels went through Great Barrington, opening the jail again, and out to Sheffield to fight, where the last battle of Shays’ Rebellion occurred, with two killed on each side, and many wounded.  (You can see a big stone marker there on Rebellion Road, with a couple of American flags next to it)  The rebels were jailed and brought to trial, as in other cases of this kind of rebellion around Western Massachusetts.  Many were sentenced in Shays’ Rebellion, some to death, including Daniel Shays, who fled to Vermont and later received a pardon.  In his very old age, he finally received a pension for his services in the American Revolution.

Shays’ Rebellion is important because it influenced the writing of the Constitution, which occurred just at the end of the rebellion.  More strength was given to a national government, to the importance of the rule of law, and more protection was given for property.  Treason was defined. 

Shays’ Rebellion had other effects.  Some state laws were changed to ease the problems of debtors.  A bill of rights was added a little later to the constitution, guaranteeing the various freedoms that were exercised in both Shays’ Rebellion and the Revolution, but set in a context that would hopefully prevent further violence.  Police were now considered necessary.  Unitarian Thomas Jefferson, ambassador to France at the time, wrote about Shays’ Rebellion, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing . . . . It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government…”

Shays’ Rebellion did succeed in changing some of the problems, easing some of the inequities.  The veterans got some compensation, some debts forgiven.  But in the end, the farmer veterans were still not treated very well by the new nation, although the economy improved and they mostly settled back into farming.

Lest you worry, I am not proposing that we join farmers and veterans and take over the courthouse or open up the jail, and I certainly am not hoping to pillage Stockbridge, or to take up arms against each other over in the Sheffield flats.  But I do notice that the veterans of the American Revolution were treated poorly, and responded directly because they believed that you fight for justice and equality, and so they did, and mostly nonviolently.

Some of our veterans today are treated poorly – some almost always have been, after every conflict.  We had no real organization to help them at all until the 20th century.  After the Civil War, Universalist Clara Barton spearheaded the effort just to track down 22,000 soldiers, and to create the first national cemetery and mark the graves of unknown soldiers with names of the dead.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars was created in 1913-1914 to help needy and disabled vets and their families, as well as the widows and orphans, and to promote patriotism and community service. 

The first time we decided to honor veterans on an annual basis was after World War I ended, on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour.  For a while this was called Armistice Day.  After World War II, it was changed to recognize all who had served, and after the Korean War, it was officially called Veterans Day, which we mark this Tuesday.

We didn’t have a government agency for vets until the Veterans Administration was started in 1930, replaced now by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, created in 1989.  During the Great Depression, desperate veterans and their families camped out in Washington D.C. on the Mall, peacefully asking the government for their promised, but denied, bonus pay, but they were forced off.  After World War II, our benefits to Veterans were at their highest, with the educational assistance and homeownership help that really made a difference in the lives of those who had fought.  Veteran benefits were reduced for Korean and Vietnam vets, and reduced again for recent vets.

In January of this year, a new organization formed called Vets for Justice.  The founder, Billy Ray Kidwell, had waited 31 years for the Department of Veteran Affairs to process his claim, and he found other disgruntled vets, 3000 of whom immediately responded to a website he created.  Having a right to certain benefits does not mean that you receive them.  Vets for Justice says that veterans often wait 20 years or more to settle their legitimate claims for assistance; in one case 55 years; in another, the widow finally collected.  It does take a while to process, and wartime records can be very poor, but Kidwell claims that the Veterans Affairs Department lies, destroys claims, steals, and denies legitimate benefits because, he says, “They try to keep the cost of war low by cheating vets.” 

Vets for Justice states that only 4 % of the veterans’ claims are ever processed.  They note that more than 300,000 vets must wait 6 months or more to see a V.A. primary care physician.  Finally, they notice that an important law works against veterans, allowing the V.A. to sue veterans in federal court, but prohibiting the veterans from going to federal court to attempt to get their claims.

Folks, veterans represent a very special group of people that we had better honor and appreciate.  Why?  In a complicated society like ours, we provide the resources to have hard things done in our names, with our money.  Some of the hard stuff is physical, like building highways, and some of the hard work is emotional, like educating our children, and we honor these workers and appreciate that we don’t have to do this tough stuff ourselves.  Some of the hard things take risks.  Firefighters, like the brave ones in California these last two weeks, risk their lives for us, and we honor them and thank them with all our hearts. 

Sometimes the risk is more than the loss of life – the hardest stuff we ask people to do in our name and with our resources is to risk their souls.  Anytime we ask someone to wield deadly force on our behalf, we have asked them to put their whole beings on the line.  Police do this.  They must live with their decisions always, and they must decide quickly, in stressful situations, whether or not to hurt or kill someone, for the protection and benefit of others, including society at large.  Thankfully, this does not happen often.  We honor them and thank them for this terrible duty they do for us.

Our United States armed services men and women put their whole beings on the line all of the time.  They endure deprivation and hardship, currently from extreme heat, sandstorms and sometimes lack of adequate food and water.  They risk injury and death, from both the enemy, and from the dangers the government knows about and does not always warn or protect against, as happened with Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium; and they risk injury and death from the generally dangerous situations they are in.  In a recent report, the reservists in Iraq, who comprise 27% of our troops, are experiencing an extremely high rate of non-hostile injuries, at least partly because they are not as well prepared as professional soldiers.  A couple of weeks ago, the German hospital, where we send our serious injuries, reported that they had treated over 7700 Americans from the combat in Iraq.  Soldiers also live with loss all around them and with the grief, survivor guilt, and fear that is engendered by the constant presence of violent death.  Finally, they live with the knowledge that they have hurt and killed others.  If we ask soldiers to do and endure all of this on our behalf, we had better have really strong reasons why we believe it is good for our society, for us, that they risk their whole beings, their very souls.  They will live with the hard memories, the post traumatic stress disorders, the busted up bodies and the broken spirits.  We need to honor this in a much stronger way than with a parade or a holiday.

To honor a veteran is not just to thank him or her.  We have not thanked many of our veterans, and we should, but that is not enough.  Our country did thank the World War II veterans, and I believe that helped shut them up for 50 years.  More than thanking them, we have to begin to take their load, to share their pain and suffering, for we are also responsible.  They went to war because we sent them, no matter what we ever thought about a specific conflict, no matter whether we were a conscientious objector tax resistor or a war supporter – we are our society – we are the ones who sanction others using deadly force on our behalf.

            We honor veterans when we insist that they are well treated when they come home, that they receive adequate and fair disability assistance, and much more.  We need to reinstate the great GI bill provisions that gave veterans and our whole nation a lift after World War II.  One veteran told what the nation owes veterans this way:  “It does not owe us any medals for the wrongs done to us nor even parades.  Instead it owes us easily accessible and decent medical care and benefits for our injuries and disabilities.  Also, since we served to protect our children and future generations from foreign harm the very least our government can do for our children and future generations who may serve in the armed forces is to treat them with justice.  Do not knowingly expose them to known dangers, radioactive, bacteriological or chemical or whatever, without proper training and protection.  And, if, in spite of all proper protection, they nevertheless become injured, treat them with dignity and respect and provide easily accessible and proper medical care and benefits.  Also, to truly honor veterans, abolish war.”  

When I cast my vote from now on, one of the issues I am going to examine in detail is how the candidates address veterans’ concerns.  I hope you consider this much neglected area of public policy too as well.

There is another way to honor our veterans, and that is to talk to them about their experiences, listening attentively.  As in any experience where one’s whole being is involved, let alone at risk, a person needs to process it, to give it voice, to have the chance to seek understanding and peace.  We owe it to veterans to be a part of their journey of healing – they have been a part of our journeys. 

Actually, I am not just making an idle suggestion here, I have decided to request a present from you.  This year for the holidays I have only one thing on my gift list and it doesn’t cost anything.  I want you to have a conversation with a veteran and find out three things, if it’s possible, and write them down for me:  1) What was difficult about the service for them?  2) How have they dealt with that hard part?  3) How has it changed them?  Yes, I do have a sheet for you to take with you that has these questions.  Whatever other reminiscences come up that you’d like to include is fine. 

You see, I am going to put together a book.  The last time I said this from the pulpit, a whole committee of people got involved and put in hundreds of hours worth of work, and the congregation submitted their many meditative writings, and we are now exhaustedly waiting for the book to be published in less than a month, . . . but . . . this will be different, so no groaning.  This is a project for my sabbatical, but starting now.  I want to honor veterans by recording their stories, by being with them in their journey.

And of course, this is a gift to the veterans, and to you – the best gifts are for everyone at once.  The veterans get more than a parade:  real honor and maybe healing.  I heard a BBC report this week in which U.S. soldiers in Iraq discussed how they couldn’t talk about what was happening to them with their families.  They said that their loved ones couldn’t understand, and that it would worry them.  Soldiers go home weighed down with the burden of the stuff they didn’t share with their families.  You won’t be able to totally understand either, but hopefully, you will get to have a meaningful conversation with someone.  This gives you a real excuse to get it started.  You can say, “This is what my minister asked for as a present – I wanted to get her a book of poetry or a candle, but she’s a bit nuts.”  But then you can start a wonderful conversation.

So you’re probably wondering, why does this peace activist minister want to edit and write a book about veterans and their war experiences?  For the cause of peace, of course.  I believe that speaking the truth about war will not glorify war, but give us more reason to work for peace. 

Do you remember a few years ago, when all the 50 year anniversary commemorations of World War II were happening?  Veterans of that war began to talk, to process memories they’d never shared.  My father hasn’t quit talking about World War II since then, and he has some incredible stories.  Films were made, books written, and families deeply affected.  Much healing happened because the opportunity was given to speak of that time and its difficulties.

Just before the Iraq war began, someone did a poll about opposition to the war, the results of which stuck with me.  The poll sought to find out which generation had the greatest opposition to going to war in Iraq.  It wasn’t the young adults, who might have worried about fighting the war.  It wasn’t the first Gulf War veterans, who knew what conflict in that region was like.  It wasn’t the Vietnam era veterans and resistors, who knew what quagmire really means.  (Although apparently, they are the ones who are becoming most vocal now in calling for an end to the conflict that reminds them too much of their war.)  It wasn’t the Korean veterans, and it wasn’t the last of the World War I veterans either.  Of course it was the Great Generation, the ones who were service men and women and young adults during World War II.  I have to believe that they have the special wisdom of being the generation in our lifetime when the most Americans were directly affected by war, and they are the generation who has most processed that experience. 

Peace is possible, especially if we really understand what war is and what war does.  I hope that you will help me honor veterans by talking to them, listening to them, and telling me their stories.  If we had honored our first veterans by giving them their promised compensations, we would not have had Shays’ Rebellion.  If we had listened to them, the rebellion would not have turned violent.  If we do not honor our most recent veterans, what a shame that will bring on our nation.  May we act in such a way for justice and compassion that a rebellion of veterans is not needed again. 

In conclusion, let us assert with Abraham Lincoln, ". . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."