To the editor:
My late friend Bob “Decorah eagle cam” Anderson and I had just finished a day of pulling water samples in his fight against a hog confinement next to his rural Decorah/Bluffton property. Everyone else had left that evening, and Bob and I, having recently met because of this confinement, were outside talking and smoking cigarettes.
Knowing from my writing that I was a former combat Marine and a disabled Vietnam veteran, Bob quietly said, “I want you to know that I am a conscientious objector.”
Into that vulnerable and honest moment, I responded as I do to conscientious objectors with my telling Bob that he, and other CO’s, were, and are, much more brave than I was.
I had been in the Marine Corps for two-and-a-half years before I got orders to Vietnam in 1969. I understood that there was something very wrong with that war, but I was more afraid of going to jail or Canada than I was of the unknown Vietnam.
As we now know, Vietnam was an immoral and illegal war based on the “Gulf of Tonkin” lie and our refutation of the U.N. agreed upon Vietnam elections of 1956.
Bob Anderson, and other conscientious objectors, show bravery and moral courage where supposed “heroes” like me are too fearful to take a stand.
Can a conscientious objector be the president/commander in chief? I hope so. We need moral courage in the White House today, when violence — individual and government — is seen to be the only answer the United States has to offer.
Bob Watson, Decorah
