You Have Chosen the State Over Christ

Don Timmerman died of cancer on July 19. He spent almost all of his adult life advocating for peace and justice. I am tempted to say that he was “fighting” for those causes, but I’m not sure if that word is appropriate to describe a man who was an absolute pacifist. Based on his understanding of the Gospels, especially the Beatitudes, Don rejected all wars and, by extension, all aspects of the military.

He was an elder and leader at the Casa Maria Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He posted a monthly newsletter, Casa Cry, in which he consistently railed against the U.S. military-industrial complex and the violence and suffering it produces. He used his jeremiads to stir the consciences of those people who bothered to peruse his essays, and he encouraged them to protest against the evils of war. Unfortunately, I suspect that most, if not all, of his readers already agreed with most of his views. He was preaching to the choir.

I did not know Don well. I can’t remember how I met him. Nor can I remember the last time I spoke to him. Up until the time that my wife and I became guardians and full-time caregivers for our little grandson, Asher, I was often involved in protests of one sort or another. I would see him at these demonstrations. It was his calling to bear witness. In that sense, Don was a prophet, like those in the Hebrew Scriptures. If he saw injustice, he had to say something, or at least silently show his opposition to it. He had to be there.

It seems odd that I ever met him at all. Our paths in life were radically different. Don trained to be a missionary priest in Tanzania. He was at one time a translator for Mother Teresa. He became deeply involved with the Catholic Worker movement. He repeatedly participated in antiwar protests and was often arrested for civil disobedience. He was passionate about living as a disciple of Christ.

I, on the other hand, graduated from West Point, and I spent six years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. I served in a helicopter unit in West Germany during the early 1980s. My oldest son, Hans, enlisted in the Army in 2009. He went to war in Iraq. He came back damaged.

Don frequently demonstrated against ROTC at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I went there with him once. It was a lonely vigil. I think he was often all alone when he protested, but he felt that it was his duty to be there. Don believed that it was wrong for a Catholic school to support ROTC. The administration at Marquette disagreed with him.

I stood with him, holding a sign to protest the training of military officers at Marquette. At one point, a young, fresh-faced ROTC cadet walked past us nervously. He glanced at me and hurried away. When I looked at the cadet, I saw me, an earlier version of myself. That shook me. I understood why this young man was wearing a uniform and doing what he was doing. I do not think Don understood why the cadet had chosen that path. He saw it all in terms of right and wrong, black and white. ROTC was wrong. Period.

The times when I was demonstrating with Don were educational for me. They also made me feel uneasy. It should be noted that my wife and I did absolutely everything we could to keep Hans out of the wars. We used advice from the Quakers to document his conscientious objection when he had to register for Selective Service. The irony was that Hans enlisted anyway, for all the same reasons I had joined 50 years earlier. Hans and I were, and in a way still are, part of the system that Don so intensely opposed. We’re vets, and he never was.

On May 6 of this year, I posted an essay on this website, “No One Knows What This War Is For.” Read it if you want. Don did, and he sent a remarkably long response to what I wrote. I attempted in my article to describe what a disaster the current war against Iran is. I did not use moral arguments against the war. Don had always used moral persuasion with limited success. I tried mostly to explain why the war was so stupid. Thomas Merton once said that a man would rather be considered clever than good. I tried to appeal to a person’s intellect more than to their conscience.

Don sent me a variation of his usual diatribe against war. He apparently assumed that I supported war in general and only opposed this current fiasco. In his response, his last words to me were:

“You have chosen the state over Christ.”

Don Timmerman, in correspondence with the author

That stung.

The fact is that I agree with almost all that he said. One thing I learned from my time with Don was that people seldom listen to moral exhortations. Prophets are usually ignored, or worse. Maybe I have chosen the state over Christ. Or maybe I see more nuances than Don did. I don’t know about that. All I know is that my son and I have suffered from the effects of war. I think I hate war as much as Don did, and I may have more reason to do so.

I wrote back to Don, and I asked him not to judge me.

He replied, “Of course.”

Don was a good man. I admire his courage and his dedication. He lived his faith.

I just wish we had known each other better. I wish we had understood each other better.

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Frank Pauc is a former Army aviator, a longtime trucking-company supervisor, and a contributor to The Havok Journal. A West Point graduate from the Class of 1980, he completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course and flight school, served with the 3rd Armored Division in West Germany and the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, and left the Army in 1986. He later taught citizenship classes through Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee, took part in peace and protest work, and writes largely about veterans, family, grief, and the long aftermath of military service.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.