[MAPC-discuss] Another good Chronicle Column: X...

[MAPC-discuss] Another good Chronicle Column: X...

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2001-11-11

ACTIVISM
Never, Never, Never Give Up
From war hero to pacifist

Stephanie Salter, Chronicle Columnist    Sunday, November 4, 2001


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During the year Charlie Liteky spent in Lompoc federal prison, he lost 26
pounds, marked his 70th birthday, listened to the life stories of inmates
one- third his age and worshipped weekly in a Lakota Sioux sweatlodge.

A former Catholic priest and Vietnam War hero, Liteky also did a great deal
of reading about Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement
and an outspoken pacifist until her death in 1980 at the age of 83.

"I knew about her, of course, but I never realized the extent of her
pacifism or how controversial it made her," said Liteky. "She remained a
pacifist throughout World War II. It cost her a lot of friends and
supporters even in her own movement. That's a kind of courage that's rare."

Liteky knows more than the average person about courage -- and controversy.

As an Army chaplain in Vietnam, he dragged 23 wounded soldiers to safety
during a firefight in Ben Hoa province in 1967. For that he received the
Medal of Honor, our nation's highest award for combat heroism.

Twenty years later, married and no longer a priest, Liteky left his medal at
the base of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington to protest U.S. aid to the
Contras in Nicaragua. He'd already tried a 47-day, water-only fast on the
steps of the Capitol with another vet. It left both of them near death.

In 1990, Liteky and his wife, Judy, a former Catholic nun who had introduced
Charlie to the world of peace activism, were drawn to small protests at the
School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. A training ground for
U.S.-backed Latin American warriors (and the occasional assassin and
dictator), the school now attracts tens of thousands of protesters each
November.

Those who "cross the line" and trespass on the base are often arrested. The
last time Charlie crossed, he was rewarded with a maximum sentence: two
consecutive six-month terms in the Federal Correctional Institute at Lompoc.

Fellow parishioners at the Litekys' San Francisco church, St. John of God,
helped Judy finance monthly visits to the prison 30 miles north of Santa
Barbara. A college math teacher, she became Charlie's eyes, ears and voice
at School of the Americas protest rallies and fundraisers.

Charlie spent his last 70 days in Lompoc in solitary because he refused to
work for what he considers an immoral prison industry. Visits with Judy were
brief and very public. She watched the relatives of other prisoners --
almost all of them young, in prison for drug-related crimes -- try to
maintain some shred of family structure.

"It's a shock," said Judy. "The parents, grandparents -- to see little kids
waiting -- just the intensity of their bodies -- waiting for Dad to come out
of this hallway from behind steel doors. I kept thinking: We can do better
than this."

Charlie was released in July. His plan, after a spate of speaking
engagements, was to write a book about his year in prison in the context of
all he has learned about U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam.

Since Sept. 11, though, he has found it hard to make time for the book; his
message of peaceful conflict resolution has taken on a whole new dimension.

Questions from audiences are more confrontational and demanding. After a
speech in Sacramento, where he spoke about struggling to respond to violence
without violence, he wrote to President Bush.

"I'd talked that night about my own arduous journey toward non-violence --
emotionally, spiritually, every way," he said. "I told the president that I
hoped before he proceeded, he'd recall what we did in Vietnam, in Panama,
all the innocent lives we've taken while seeking what we thought to be
legitimate ends."

Liteky asked Bush to ask himself if the United States was "in any way
responsible" for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, to
remember that our economic sanctions alone "are starving 5,000 Iraqi kids to
death each month."

He also shared a major theme of his post-Sept. 11 message:

"If there is any enemy here, it's violence. We need to protest and boycott
violence because we eat, drink and sleep it in our country; we are
entertained by it. If we don't stop, we're just going to join in an unending
cycle of violence, like an escalator that keeps going up and up and up."

On Nov. 16, the Litekys plan to travel to Fort Benning once again to protest
the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation). Neither intends to cross the line this year, but
future arrests, especially for Charlie, are likely.

"When I was in Lompoc, I was thinking maybe I could retire after my 70th
birthday," Liteky said with a wry smile. "But then I look at Dorothy Day --
my God, I've got at least 10 more years to go."

E-mail Stephanie Salter at ssalter@sfchronicle.com. Charlie Liteky will
address the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on Tuesday at
5:15 p.m. Information: 415/597-6700 or www.commonwealthclub.org.



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Sunday, November 11, 2001 10:32 AM

[MAPC-discuss] Another good Chronicle Column: X...