Spirit in Action

Will Williams/Veterans for Peace

Will Williams was born in central Mississippi on 9/11/1943 and joined the military as a way past the limitations of his race and environment. He did 2 tours in Vietnam, suffered major PTSD, fully emerging from it after 9/11/2001 as he found his voice to speak out against war with the Veterans for Peace.

Duration:: 59m
Broadcast on:: 18 Dec 2005
Audio Format:: mp3

I have no hands but yours to tempt my sheep. No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep. I have no arms but yours with which to hold. The ones grown weary from this struggle and weak from growing old. I have no voice but yours with which to see. To let my children know that I am out and out is everything. I have no way to feed the hungry souls. No clothes to give or make it and the more. So be my heart, my hand, my tongue through you and will be done. The enders have my none to help and die. Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeade. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. I have no way to open people's eyes, except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind. Today on Spirit in Action, we'll be visiting with Will Williams. Will was born in Central Mississippi on September 11, 1943, and joined the military as a way past the limitations imposed on him because of his race and environment. He did two tours in Vietnam, suffered major PTSD, fully emerging from it only after September 11, 2001, as he found his voice to speak out against war with the veterans for peace. Will's grandmother, Shoshone, was an early voice for non-violence in Will's life, but his anger led him through years of violence and pain before he could understand and incorporate her words into his life. Will and his wife, with two friends, perform as the Madison Gospel errors doing acapella old-time religious music. Will, thanks for joining me today on Spirit in Action. How are you doing today? If I'm doing good Mark and thanks for having me because what he's doing I think is something that has to be done with your radio program and we need more facts in this country. I ran into you through the Winds of Peace newsletter, and it was a really nice article talking about your speaking out with veterans for peace. How long have you been active with veterans for peace? Well, this chapter started about three years ago, and prior to that I hadn't been active in anything. One of the guys at Winds of Peace, Mike Bay, is a Vietnam vet also, and that's how he got in touch with me and how I came up in the article that he was doing on Vietnam. He does a lot of work still and makes no much trips to Vietnam every year. Have you been a peace activist for a long time? Probably a couple of weeks after September 11, 201. Prior to that I hadn't been active in anything. The tragedy of 201 kind of brought me out. I could no longer remain silent. That was due to the temperament of the country. It seemed like everybody was making September 11th a bad day and wanting to revenge our bloodshed for what had happened. You know, I just thought of it as a context that this is not a bad day. It's the day I was born. I just thought I wouldn't just let idle and let people say this is a bad day and beat the drums of wolf without me speaking out. You were born on September 11th, what year? 1943. I was born in a small town in Central Mississippi, a little town called Crystal Springs. I grew up doing the Jim Crow era. It meant a lot to me that this day was being used as a day that we've got to come together to go kill and since I had served to tourism Vietnam, I couldn't see the logic and what was happening. Would you have understood it back when you were in Vietnam? No. When I was there, back in the 60s, I was angry, first of all. I left Mississippi because of the conditions there, because of the unfair treatment that people of color were under. So I went with a lot of hate initially just to get out of Mississippi. It was a big thing and the military was a way out. The boot camp that I went through, that era it's always you go through. I think I was praying in Washington which made it easy for me to believe what I was hearing and even easier to kill people with the belief that I was doing the right thing. And it took September 11, 2001 to actually start thinking about the change that had come over me since that time in the 60s. You've gone a long road. You grew up in Mississippi and you said it was Jim Crow era back then. Can you tell me some specifics of what it was like growing up in Mississippi at that time? It was a time when I think most mothers had fear. Black mothers had fear for their male children. One time I specifically remember I was 12 years old. When Emmett Till was killed, I think most people are familiar with that. I remember Hoffman being referred to by my mother as the same thing happening to me because I was one that wouldn't take abuse. And she saw me being killed and I stayed there. I couldn't understand the history of what we were being taught and remember we had. I don't even think they'd teach it anymore with the government. We were thrilled to harm the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. And I couldn't understand how one could say we all created equal when I saw all these differences happening to my people. Some would be because they were black. That was a question that stayed in my mind forever. It bothered me so much that I remembered that the Declaration forbade them. I still remember it the same as I do my Syrian offer for the military that I couldn't see how this could be. So it kind of exacerbated the anger that I had for Vietnam. What really hit me was when I did sit and think about it. I was doing the same thing in Vietnam to people that I knew nothing about. I was calling them names that were just as derogatory as the ones that we were being called in Mississippi. And yet I was able to do that even though I was taught to love. You can see I was kind of mixed up and it took years for me to find myself. I didn't have freedom until after September 11, 201. Because once I started speaking I felt free. That I didn't have to go along to get along. That I had to be me. In 2001 you would have been coming up on 60 years old, right? And so all those years in between your time in Vietnam and there it was still percolating around. Wasn't settled? Yes, what happened in 1970 when I was discharged shortly after information about how we got to Vietnam and talking in Goofens and all that stuff started to be leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. And I listened to it and it bothered me to a point that it actually shut me down because the more I would learn about how and why we went to Vietnam. The thought of what I had done in Vietnam kind of overwhelmed me. So for years I was just on a show where I cared about nothing except my family. 201 was the breaking of that show for me to reclaim my life the way I think it should have been. I think I've done it through Council info PT being able to acknowledge what I did in Vietnam and why I did it and how I feel now about that and about war. Do you want to say anything about what you did while you're in Vietnam? Yeah, I was a E5, a buck sergeant my first tour. I was a squad leader in the infantry unit where we went out on what they call search and destroy mission. We'd go into villages, search them and do exactly what the term meant destroy it. We did that. Many times we would go, we didn't make contact of doing a fight but most of the time when we went on a village someone died. And in Gorilla warfare it's where I was stationed within the Mekong where we were fighting with the cause of the Mekong. You couldn't tell them from everyday people because they had no uniforms. They wore the same clothes that the peasants in the countryside wore. So you couldn't tell who you were killing and at that time it didn't bother me. I think I was inspired when I saw people that I was close to being killed, it would inspire me to kill more. And I stayed in that mode for a lot of years to the point to where when I came back after my first tour I couldn't handle the protest. So I put in a request to go back to Vietnam and get away from it. When was that? I came back from Vietnam my first tour in December of 1966 and I put a 1049 in, I think it was around mid 1967. So I left where we had gone on vacation to California and I holler protesters in early 1968. My orders finally came back to go to Vietnam. When you say you encountered protesters, what do you mean were they yelling at you, calling you names? No, they weren't directing it at me. We were in California and I was in the He-dishbury district because they were having a rally. And they were just speaking about the war and talking about the social issues of how we were killing women and children in Vietnam that had done nothing to us. That this country was more or less on an imperialistic quest rather than liberating the people. They weren't directing it at me, but it was just hearing that I couldn't handle. And I don't know if it was out of my bravado or brainwashing or if it was out of guilt for what I had done. I never figured that out because it took many years for me to realize that what I did in Vietnam was wrong. And I think part of it has to do with the human nature of many that it's hard for a man to say, I was suckered, I was chomped, I did this, so it took me a long time to reach that conclusion. That because of my ignorance, I killed and maimed a lot of people who destroyed a lot of lives that had I been aware of what was really going on. I would not have participated in it. How were you raised, did this class with the values that you've had growing up? Yes, I was raised. My grandmother was someone old. My grandmother never spoke of God. She always spoke of a creator. She told me stories about her people and even though they were persecuted, that without finding love for mankind, it's that they couldn't have existed. She told me that I learned that we were part of this earth, that all men were part of the earth regardless of their color. So it made me, I don't understand at that time, where she was coming from. It took me many years to really understand because I was young when she was telling me her stuff. And with the heat that I had, I was in a hole where I felt that violence would be the only thing that would change what was going on. And I think that was perpetrated by the number of leaders that I saw like you suffer for no reason, other than being themselves. It was devastating for me to live up to what she was telling me. I couldn't understand it how she could even tell me this. Why are history books so full of lives when no word is spoken of why the Indian dies? Or that the Chicanos love the California land? Do our books all say it was discovered by one white man? Well, that's just a lie. One of the many and we've had plenty. I don't want more of the same. No more genocide in my name. Oh, why are the weapons of wars so young? And why are there always rich ones around when it's done? Why are so many of the soldiers black or brown? Do we think it's because they're good at cutting other people down? Well, that's just a lie. One of the many and we've had plenty. I don't want more of the same. No more genocide in my name. One of my later years as a teenager, when Martin Luther King was out, I couldn't identify with him because he had that ideology that violence would not solve any problems. So I couldn't have been a part of his organization. So it left only one thing for me and that was to believe in what I was hearing about saving the country from communism and this and that. And I think in that I was thinking that if I went to war and came back because of this, I would at least be treated better because I'm now a war veteran. And it didn't change anything. So those are the reasons that you went in the military? I went in because I grew up in a family of 10. A single home, my mother was the only one working. My father and mother were separated. And between my grandmother and mother, other ones that raised me, I think most of my nursery came from my grandmother because my mother worked back from sundown. And I saw the military as being a way that I could number one just out of Mississippi and send money back to help my mother. You know, with no social program, it was the most opportune thing I'll see. I think it's the same way to date. What did you do after you finished high school? You didn't go right in the military, did you? Yes, I did. Matter of fact, I signed up what they call now a delayed entry program. I joined the service before I graduated. Pending my graduation, I would go in. I had taken the physical and gone through everything. And all I was waiting to graduate and I would leave Mississippi and go to school camp. And that's what I did. Did you find some time in there to get married, Will? I think you were married before you went in the military. Now what I'd have with my wife and I grew up about 10 or 15 miles apart. And I remember she used to come through our yard, go into her aunt's house, and I would see her quite often. And we would talk. Then she moved to New York. And I lost contact with her until the end of '62. When I was getting ready to go to Germany and I ran into it into New York. And after I came back from Germany, I visited her in New York. And I brought her to Hawaii. We got married in Hawaii on December 30th of 1965. So that was before you actually went over to Vietnam for your first tour? Yes. She got to Hawaii and I think it was around August 6th of '65. And we were married in December. And I went to Vietnam in January. Was the racism many less bad Will in the military? No, not really. It was not as late as it was in Mississippi. But you could see it was still there. And you could see it by the treatment that Juan got in the military. The difference, like for instance, on KP, just pulling duty on the post in Fort Jackson. Usually people of color were the ones that watched the fans did the dirt work. And it carried over to Vietnam, where doing my second tour there. One of the biggest race rides, including the ones in this country, was in Cameroon, B. and Vietnam. And it was because of the difference in treatment of people of color and others. And what was happening is they were taking people out of their M.O.S. or their job description and putting at what they called a scarm of a unit doing the physical work rather than doing work that they were trained for. That they specialized in. And it got to a boiling point to where it actually caused the ride. I don't know if anybody in the U.S. really heard about that. I don't recall reading about it myself at the time. Yeah, it was. It was one story on it. But it never hit the big media the way it is. And this was in 1969 at Cameron Bay. Wow. You weren't around there at that time, were you? Yeah, I was where I was doing my second tour. So you saw it? You were in the middle of it? Yes, I saw it. I was supposed to be in it. I was attached to an M.P. unit at Cameron Bay. And when it happened, we were told to go up and quell it or to try to stop it from happening. And I refused to do it. I think that's when I came to my sources because at that time, most of the people of color that were right and were the ones that had been pulled out of their jobs and they were the ones that was running the ammo dump, the weapons, they had everything. I didn't see where we could stop it as an M.P. unit. So I talked to my first sergeant and we didn't go. We didn't go up with guns trying to stop them. It was mediation that took place that brought it to an end. Let's go back. I want to pick up a thread that I dropped along the way, Will. Did you have a religious upbringing? Yes. I was brought up in the church. We went to Sunday school and stayed through the afternoon service. It was mandatory. We didn't have a choice to want to. That was Methodist, right? What was your relationship to that? What did you think about it? I thought, I don't know. I believed in, I enjoyed it number one. I would like to hear the Bible stories. And at the same time, I was made the ones that they confused in my younger years of hearing people in the church talk about God. And my grandmother only spoke of a creator. So she never used the term God. And she didn't go to church. And my mother went, and my siblings, but my grandmother and grandfather did. And it took me a while to understand what the connection was between the creator and God. I'm hearing all this stuff about Jesus being born on crystal stay in this stuff and the creation of the world back in Genesis. And at the same time, my grandmother is referring to someone greater, but a different name. So did you stay in Methodist all along the way? No, no. I came back after my first two overseas. I came back on the league and went to a church in Mississippi that I had been going to since I was a young man. And was a member of it. And after two and a half years away, when I came back on the league, I went to church and the people were putting pressure on me because I hadn't paid my tithe while I was gone. And my father had built this church and they owed him. They never finished paying him for the construction of it. And he had passed on. And I got angry at that time because I saw things as being wrong that they're telling me that I'm not a member anymore. I was taken off the roads because I didn't pay during the time that I was overseas. Yet they never paid my father for doing it. And it was to a point where I think had my sisters not stepped in. I probably would have tried to take legal actions to take the building away from them. I take it you stopped attending that church. Yes, I stopped attending any church for many years. I didn't go to church at all. And I think the first church that I actually joined was here at Madison. And it must have been from 1979 or maybe 1980, I joined a church called Mount Zion Baptist. And I was there for a while and got uneasy and left it and went to a tunnel castle church and joined and left it for a while. Because I saw within the church is that many people rather than looking at people as people that were judging people. I also saw it as people coming together as if it's a fashion show that you've got to wear a three-piece suit or something. I started believing that the church is in the heart that the building is just the place where people assemble and the spirit is there. And I did feel the spirit in those churches in a sense it drove away. You and I have a lot in common that way. You know in Quaker practice we don't refer to the buildings as churches. We've heard them as meeting houses because that's where you meet with folks. Yes, I look at it some time like a filling station. At times it's running low. You go and you refill your home. You go to church and you hear a message. But I don't feel, I got to do it every Sunday. I go to the same place every Sunday. I don't feel that you have to be a member of an uncertain denomination to be a good Christian or to make it to the other side. That's why I say we operate on a free spirit. We still go to church. Well we just don't know what church will be going to. Like on Sunday morning we'll get up and have no idea what church we're stopping in. For me it's better that way. It's more peaceful that way. You don't get caught up in the yellow working party and are not working. Yeah, there's a lot of that goes on. Will I wanted to step back? You got out of the military. Got back from Vietnam in 1970 and I think Dot was still there waiting for you. I think you were an angry period in your life there. Were you going through PTSD stuff right away? What was happening for you? Yes, I was. I didn't understand it at the time because I know my daughter and my wife used to tell me that I had changed and I was different. I wasn't like I was before I went to Vietnam. I couldn't understand or didn't want to understand where they were coming from. And at the same time I think had it not been for me knowing my wife and her knowing me prior to my going to Vietnam. I've often wondered where would I be now because when I look at the statistics of how many Vietnam that were divorced and you look at the other side most of them were married after they came back. And that why I never knew the real person. I think that was part of what caused those divorces. But I was fortunate that my wife knew my heart before I went. And when I came back to me that something about me had changed. I had lost that ability to communicate. Didn't come back really until a few years ago in the 80s when I first went for PTSD treatment. I tried to come back in 92. I tried to speak out against Desert Storm. And I couldn't just watch the war on TV and listen to what seemed to be a thirst for blood from my fellow American. It shut me down. It bothered me so much that my counsel had told me don't watch TV because it was bringing back to many of the memories. I began to have more flashbacks for nightmares. So it was bothering me mentally just to watch it. And I think that fear itself is why I did come out stronger during Desert Storm. By me having had the chance to go through the PTSD for something working with a counselor in 201 it was easier for me to come out and speak about my experiences. And to really open up the information that I had stored inside for so many years that I would need to talk about. I didn't want to remember it was easy for me to do after September 11, 201. Are you saying that you didn't talk to your wife about that even? No, I didn't go into any detail with her about a lot of stuff like we talked about it because he knew all the people in my squad and my platoon. My wife knew because when we were in Hawaii it was bringing up my house and we would go to their houses, the NCOs. And we would have the enlisted people come and we would just have to get together, play cards and party. And she used to often ask me about them. You know, and she knew many of them were killed. My unit was, I would say, wiped out. It bothered her a lot. I know at times when I wouldn't talk about it and she would mention somebody's name that she knew. She would cry when she would think about it because we were older than most of the people in my platoon. Not a lot older, but I was 22 when I went to Vietnam. But, you know, we were older compared to the 18-year-olds. It bothered her a lot because she had also made a bond with a lot of these young people. And even now it bothers her because she went on the net and looked up my company and pulled the names off of the wall that she actually knew. It bothers her. So, I think she would think to my body also by knowing these people to know now that they died for kneel. I think we can both thank God that you had dot there for you when you came back. Yeah, she's been a pillar. She has been that shoulder that I needed many days to lean on when I don't know what I would have done. She's been there even though she used to chastise me when I would fight so much. Like I used to fight almost every day for no real reason. It bothered her. I think she was worried about me hurting somebody and killing somebody. Our vice versa. I'm going to jail. I can now all of it being how much the most effective she in my daughter when I was living that way. I didn't even realize that I was that way. I wouldn't accept it. In your Methodist upbringing, did they talk about violence and peace and that kind of thing when you were being brought up? Well, my grandmother did. My grandmother advocated against the military. She didn't want me to go in. As a matter of fact, I remember I must have been about eight to nine years old. She had an old canteen that one of my brothers had brought him back when he was in service. I remember I used to have to fill it up with hot water and wrap it in rags. I would put it at her feet at night in the winter. He would feed warm. She would use the water the next morning to wash her face. It would still be warm. I remember when I was older and talking about the military, she said that the only thing good about the military was that. I didn't understand what she meant by what now I do. So you're saying that your grandmother, a seminal Indian, she taught you about peace and that kind of thing, but you didn't get it from your Methodist upbringing? No, no. What my grandmother did, she spoke of it and that's what was puzzling to me. Was that she could tell me how her people had been persecuted. And at the same time, she was telling me that our existence depended on peace and justice. That everyone should have justice, she taught me. And it was conflicting because I had so much hate there. I wanted to destroy people that had caused so much problems for my parents on both sides, from the African side and my grandmother's side. I couldn't understand how she could be so docile or so non-violent after her telling me the story, how can this be? And I think that's part of why I couldn't have joined with Martin Luther King because he was saying the same thing that she was saying. I couldn't understand it, even though in the Bible and Sunday school there was a turn the other cheek. That part, I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand how we were created equal and treated different. So it was troubling and it took many, many years for me to see the light and to understand where my grandmother was coming from. Is the racism appear any better or worse than you've experienced elsewhere? It exists. It still exists. It's not. It's blatant. And I think many times people do it without realizing what they're doing. I think many times people feel they're doing good when in reality it is helping to keep it alive. I look at many of the social workers and I think they're trapped in that where they have to play within the system. Even though many times the system is what creates the problem. And a good example of that is when we brought people into Madison, evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, and they were located in one area in Madison and buildings that were condemned a couple of years ago. They have been condemned. I'm fit to live. And we had gone. Their idea went for a homeless group a little over a year ago and tried to get the city or someone to let us use those buildings. And we couldn't because they were condemned, but yet the hurricane, if I could, they came to Madison. We're put in those same buildings. So it's like the social worker that did it was doing a good thing to help those people. And at the same time I feel that she was locating them in a high crime area, the highest crime area in the city, and seeing that these people are better off. I would say that if you had put them in a pub tent, they would be better off. But it's not the answer. I think now the people both in the city are a man. And their social workers began to understand where I was coming from because some of the people have written articles that they are unhappy. This one lady wrote an article stating that her mother had worked all her life to move them out of the project to New Orleans. She succeeded in doing that. And she had not lived in it. She had a decent job there. But yet, coming here, she was put right back in that same environment where she's worried about her tears now. Will, I wanted to follow another thing forward. You said you wanted to speak out against the Gulf War back in the early 90s, but you couldn't quite find the place to do that. Had you been making some kind of transition from being violence prone to, I don't know, I don't think you think of yourself as a pacifist necessarily. Where are you on that standpoint? I'm not a pacifist, but I believe that violence does not solve a problem. Doing does it storm. I think what bothered me more is many of the veterans that were in a group that are a man seem to be happy when they would see on the news where these people were firing on this road between Kuwait and the fact that people were just, to me, they were murdered. And I couldn't understand how people could be happy with something like this happening. I tried speaking out, I tried watching it, and I remember I called in on a program on C-SPAN and stated my views about it. But after watching it so much, my counselor at the VA told me to stop watching it. So I stopped talking about it. During that time period, I hadn't gone through any extensive program the way I did afterwards, where I could open up and really give my true feelings about my experiences. I think I was getting to a point where I lost faith in the politicians as a whole, and this time after 201, I looked at things differently. I started feeling that we, the people, are responsible, just as responsible because we don't keep the politicians accountable for their actions. After 201, I can't understand how people now can say we have to support the policies of our president. What would then that say, yeah, well, it's say when any government is destructive of any of these means, it's the right of the people to change or abolish it. That part of it struck me where after September 11, 201, then it did, doing my childhood. I think you're saying that you feel that way about the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, is that right? Yes. Are there wars that you think are good that, you know, if you were a young man again that you would be willing to fight in? No, because I think when we look at what causes war and what drives wars, I don't think we could classify them as being good or bad, because I think if we as a people in this country, which I believe is the strongest country in the world, and perhaps could be the best country in the world, that we react rather than act. And by that, I mean, if all policies in this country were policies that lifted people up for humanitarian purposes rather than oppressing people throughout the world for their resources or to attain power that we wouldn't have the problems that the edifice is for going to war would be eliminated. I think many times things that this country of dawn have created the nucleus that caused us to go to war, and especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to September 11 and the Senate bombing in 1993, this country had not been hit by any terrorist. It had been happening in the Middle East, but never on American soil until I think 1993. That made me act, of course, quiet. And when you think of how the U.S. aligned with Osama bin Laden when Russia was fighting in Afghanistan and how the U.S. created the Taliban to get Russia out of that region. And you go on and find out it was because of the need for a certain region to run their own war from the cast and see to Afghanistan and Pakistan. You put stuff together, and you can see what people would want to blow up things in America, because they feel oppressed. It doesn't justify. It was wrong. But you can see if things have been just the opposite that that need wouldn't be there. Just here in the world, terrorists all the time roused me. Because I think we in this country use words and expressions and have a show of memory of what and how this country was built. I see another side that I learned in Vietnam. I think the greatest thing I learned in Vietnam is that I am no better than those people that I was killing and persecuting that we are the same. I also learned that people will fight and die for self-determination. And I think that is part of what's happening in Iraq and in Afghanistan. We use Saddam Hussein to stop Iran back in the '80s. He was America's boy. Hom sale was there with him. But yet when he raises up and want to change and not be the prophet anymore, then he's a booger man. And I see we bring these problems on ourselves by our actions of exploitation of people, their rights and their resources to out the world for profit. [music] All I march to the battle of new Orleans at the end of the early British war. The young land started growing, the young blood started flowing, but I ain't marching anymore. I give a share of engines and a thousand different fights. I was there at the little big farm. I heard many men lying, I saw many more dying, but I ain't marching anymore. It's always the old, you lead us to the war. It's always the young to fall. Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun. Tell me is it worth it all? Or I stole California from the Mexican land, bought in the bloody civil war. Yes, I even killed my brothers, so many others, but I ain't marching anymore. All I march to the battles of the German trench, an award that was bound to end all wars. Oh, I must have killed a million men. Now they want me back again, but I ain't marching anymore. It's always the old, you lead us to the war. It's always the young to fall. Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun. Tell me is it worth it all? Or I flew the final mission in the Japanese skies, set off the mighty mushroom roar. But I saw the city's burning, knew that I was learning that I ain't marching anymore. Now the labor leaders screaming when they close a missile plant. United fruit screams at the Cuban shore. Call it peace or call it treason. Call it love or call it reason. But I ain't marching anymore. I ain't marching anymore. [applause] Part of my question, Will, about if there's a war that you felt like you could fight in, is to try and be clear what your religious or spiritual principle underneath all of this is. I think you said you couldn't fight in the war, so maybe that makes you at least anti-war if you're not a pacifist. Is that correct? Yeah, but what I could do, see if something happened in a country where we were actually going to help people for humanitarian purposes. I could be a part of it. But everything I've read about the Western world, they haven't gone in fault for those reasons. Arthur said he'd be a friend of mine who my veterans for peace chapter was named after Clarence Kalen, followed in Abraham Lincoln Brigade at 17 years old against fascists. Something like that I could support when you're really sincere about helping people. But I feel that from the exception of this country, with all the wars that they've had, not wars are the actions that they've had in the Latin America. That all this stuff was done for profit, that with the system that we have now, it can only survive if you have people at the very top that control everything, and people on the bottom who go and fight to protect the assets of those in control. Does this at all connect with the gospel that you learned growing up about loving your enemies and all that? Yes. I think that plays a great part in it. And that's another part that I think drove me away from structured religion because when I hear people like Falwell or Pat Robertson saying we should go and kill these people, kill the enemy, it goes against the teachings that I have. Because I think in the Bible it said love your neighbor. To me a lot of the stuff in religion is hypocrisy because so many people like the lives they're living that they don't have time to look or think about the lives of others in other parts of the world. Will, I wanted to ask you about this group that you sing with, the gospel errors, the maps and gospel errors. You were founder of that with your wife. What do you do and where do you do it? And then where people call it, programs usually ask for a half hour to one hour. We sang the songs from back when I was young, the oldest song, the acapella. We do it in churches, nursing homes, hospitals, at rallies and then where people will have it will go. Can you give me some examples of the names, the songs? Okay, sending up timber is one of the songs and the story behind it is that we have to do things on earth to build that mansion in the sky that I teach here is what gives us that place in the sky. The one I told you about earlier, tell me how long will it be? It's about freedom. How long will our young people be imprisoned by worldly things? Or when can they be free to live life rather than be a conformance? When will the time come when you can be yourself? Who are the gospel errors? There's four of us, my wife. I mean, a young man named Billy Brown, and John L. Justice, who is the youngest member of the group, he's in his 40s. We started my wife and I just started singing one song day. I think it was 1980. We were in a little church in Madison and we were just sitting there listening at the message and start harming. Growing up, I was used to hearing the five-blind boys of Mississippi and his old stirs and other groups would come to these small churches and the town I was in had a revival time and they would sing and I sang end groups in Mississippi. And even in Vietnam, we had five of us that did what we call a duo. So I've always liked singing. So this Sunday, we were just harming and some men in the church asked us why wouldn't we sing us all? And my wife and I did it. We had never done it before together. And the man that I asked us to sing ended up singing with us and that was the formation of the gospel errors. If someone wanted to arrange with you, how would they contact you to get ahold of the gospel errors? They could use my email or my telephone number. If you know of some church or your church, you wanted us to do whatever you would have to do with calming. Okay. And I think your email is Kuchie66. That's C-U-C-H-I-6-6@badgerinternet.com. Is that right? Yes, that's it. And your phone number, do you want to say that for our listeners too in case they want to get ahold of the gospel errors? Or maybe just get ahold of you to speak. So I can give it this 608-846-1030. And I also have a cell number that 608-279-1357. Would it be okay with you if I posted these on my website? Yes, that would be fine. And I guess I'll also mention for our listeners, you're with Veterans for Peace and a contact for them will be on my website. You're also active with the Madison area of Peace Coalition. And their website is madpeace.org. Yeah, m-a-d-p-e-a-c-e.org. I want to thank you for taking the time, Will, to speak with us. You've had an incredible journey. I want to also send thanks to Dot for being there with you and making a difference. Okay, and I appreciate that. I want to thank you also for letting me do this. Thanks again, Will. In 1963, in my hometown Bristol, Tennessee, sitting on my mother's knee, watching him as an ending on TV. He was in a close-on Christmas Eve. Little girl is tugging at his sleeve, singing "I Have a Dog, My Own Color, Please." He said, "Honey, you can make the leaves." Just then came a call on a telephone. It was the mayor asked if my daddy was home. This was for his ears alone. Mom and me listened on the second floor. May you say the freedom rides on their way. They'll be here by Christmas day, our laws they found to disobey. 'Cause our school's as wide as the Milky Way. Well, now we're really in a fix. Can't let them show us the black country's. But once we let the races meet us, it's goodbye Jim Crow by the Jims. First it's 40 acres and a mule. Then they want us to swim in our swimming pool. Pretty soon they'll be wanting to go to school. Where we would talk the golden pool. Imagine them telling us how to live. Imagine them telling us how to live. We're number one in America. Number one in America. Beat the drummer up and say, "Oh, the common bird he had." Oh, to be number one in America. Backs, handles first the right to vote. Oh, I'd tell her as old as she wrote. Back at the bus, don't rock the boat. Separate the equal by the throat. That was 20 or years ago. With change in the status quo. The freedom land is lying low. It shackled down on a rotten road. Better black-skinned man still gets the snub. But he applies to the country club. But he still gets high to trim the shrubs. Get down on the floor and scrub. And there's a business man held on his yacht. He's a rain of sunshine, faith, yeah. And all this talk about boycotts. He says it's all common flaws to beat. Number one in America. Number one in America. Beat the drummer up and say, "Oh, the common bird he had." Dynamite in America. It's church. Fourteen eight girls lost in the urch. Firehoses and the billy clubs. All his dogs and the recess thugs and not your writers. And an inchy and mob. Long men say they're only doing it tonight. To stay. Number one in America. The club's glance still around. With the permit to march in my hometown. But only on Virginia's ground the Tennessee side turned him down. The chef stood there with his deputy license a play to keep the peace. But he made us this guarantee. Like God, they'll not march in the Tennessee. Network cameras were a triple tear. We lacked pride in food and gin. But mostly we stood there with fear to the club's clan. Disappeared. In some fall of distant dawn when the black is president. And not upon will they burn crosses on the White House long. Then talk for those days by dawn. Imagine them telling us how to live. Imagine they're telling us how to live. With number one in America. Overcoming burning hands. Oh to me. Number one in America. Last Christmas Eve at the Kmart store. A white family there they was dirtball. Father said kids pick one toy no more. Even though we can't hear the bullet. I'll watch your son choose a basketball. The oldest girl. The Cree is so sure that little his girl chose a black scandal. And she held it to a chest and all. I'll watch it to see how they react. Since they were white and the door was black. But the mom and dad were mad in the fact. They just checked to see if the door was cracked. So may you make a reference game. With black and white go ahead. Till they reach the freedom bank. Where the lion lies down in the bank. Oh number one in America. Number one in America. Meet the driver of the sand. Overcoming burning hands. Dynamite in the Baptist Church. Four teenage girls lost in the dirt. Firehoses and the filly clothes. All his dogs and their vieces thugs. They're back o'clock. Little rock. Both was old on the auction. Blocknighter riders. Enemy, gin, marble, long. And say they're only doing it. Yeah. To stay. Number one in America. Ohhhhhhhhhh. Ohhhhhhhhhh. ♪♪♪ You've been listening to a Spirit in Action interview with Will Williams of the Veterans for Peace. You can hear this program again and other programs via my website at Northern Spirit Radio. .org. Music featured in this program includes No More Genocide by Holly Neer. I ain't marching anymore. By Phil Oaks. And Number one in America. By David Massengill. The theme music for Spirit in Action is "I Have No Hands but Yours" by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow subtly toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪♪♪ ♪♪ I have no higher cause for you than this. ♪♪ ♪♪ To love and serve your neighbor. ♪♪ ♪♪ Enjoying selflessness. ♪♪ To love and serve your neighbor. ♪♪ Enjoying selflessness. ♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪