How did you feel about it . Upset. What did she say . To take care and write me every day. I tried everything. Almost everything. No way. So what is your family going to do when youre away . Live. Worry, i guess. He was supposed to report but he just did not go. We tried everything. Medical excuse, everything. And i am pregnant and i do not know what i am going to do. Dont volunteer, whatever you do. [bus idling] you never know. Vietnam is this nations most anguishing problem. But the middle east is the most dangerous. Ricky wantand, and to eat something . I dont. What . Maybe ricky will. I really felt that way, too. I just feel that i cant possibly give another one of my boys to the service. But we are so very grateful to everyone for all the help they have given us. Two months ago, this Selective Service center which covers most of the San Gabriel Valley notified dan willie that he was 1a. Yesterday he was notified that his induction had been postponed, but even if it had not been postponed, willie was going to go to school today. He does not plan to be inducted into the service. Hes one of five sons in this family of west covina. Three of his brothers have already served in vietnam. One died there. The willie family decided they had given enough, that this son should at least be allowed to finish college. Hes the first man in his family ever to refuse service. His forefathers served in the civil war, the first and second world wars, and his brothers in vietnam. When his brother john died in vietnam, the Family Tradition of service ended, and his parents said no more. I know what they went through when my brother was killed and im not going to make them go through it over me no matter what happens. Ill never go in the service. Were not bluffing. It dont matter to them, but jeez, for four years weve had a monkey on our back. We are going to get it off one way or another. It just aint going to be in this family anymore. Its awful. Were not putting up with it at all. Its over with us. I just hope they go ahead and give him his student deferment, for a while, anyway. Of course, we hope its going to be changed. Thats what we want. Anything to keep him out of service. Keep us in the country. No, we wont do anything to keep them out of the service. There will be no medical in any way, shape, or form. When it comes to that, were leaving. We wont go that route at all. I just felt that, and my husband felt, we had served sufficiently in this war, and that this family has been torn up by this war for four years, and if they take our other two boys, it will be another four years before it will be over for us. I dont know how to tell the story of how we found out. Of course, we were notified by the army that john was missing first, and then five days later, that he had been killed in action. How did we feel . I dont know. I remember looking out the window, it was mothers day and people were coming and going and they were having company and so on, and i thought, why is the world going on . Dont they realize that its stopped . But, how do i feel . I really dont know. Tom and i are very religious, and this is the only thing that saved us, im sure. Were very close. I remember when they gave us our gold stars, they gave us seven. One for each of my other five children, and one for my husband and myself. And i said to my daughter, they left seven gold stars, and she said seven, what a strange number. It was a strange number to us. We had had six children and there was a family of eight. Seven never entered our mind until then. For months and weeks, and almost this whole year, tom and i have just wondered why we even try. What difference does it make what happens to you now . You get to the point where you think why are you living . We felt that we had raised our children, and now they were dying, and we just wanted to be with johnny so bad, that we thought maybe if we died that would be the best thing to happen to us. But i realized that you cant feel this way, that im sure my son is in heaven, and that someday we will join him, but you have to live for the others, too. I know this. But what a world of depression it can be to lose a child. [silence] i think the thing i found is that people dont know quite how to act. They are not quite sure whether they should come to you with condolences as if you had lost a family member. People kind of talk in hushed tones, as if they had a sense that you must be terribly ashamed to have a son who is a federal convict. When he was drafted in chicago, he became very much aware that he was a boy with a good education, he was able to talk well, who really only ever got a co classification for the draft board. It just seemed so unfair that he felt he couldnt string along with it anymore. His being in prison was something that we had to look forward to. He had no faintest thought of going off to canada, leaving his country. He felt very strongly that people who take this kind of a position do so really because they are devoted to their country and the principles to which it is based, and simply have to take whatever the consequences are of this kind of thing. And so, i think he accepted the idea that he would have to pay society in any way that society demands, and we did, too. He went in and gave himself up to the marshalls on may 4. Take care. You, too. The prison system can break any man, and they make every effort to break every man, and this kind of apprehension i feel constantly. And i think elizabeth feels it constantly and its the sort of thing, we dont like to talk about it. But i think its there. And i think thats the kind of apprehension there is. Do you agree . No, i do not. [laughter] its not there at all for me. No, i have no question about that. Physically, they can break a man , but i dont think they can break a mans spirit if its rooted and grounded in love, if i can use a quaker expression. The kids are saying to us, you get into doing something yourself, resist this thing yourself in your own lives, dont leave it to us to do all the resisting. I have a very clear sense in my own resistance of feeling like i want to keep working and doing the things that i can do to raise the level of public understanding about the war, bring the war to an end. In other words, to do things with my life at this point, which rick isnt able to do because hes behind bars. [birds chirping] that was a sign for the day. I would like to tell you why, kindly. For the past 12 years, every year, i have taught about southeast asia, vietnam, but its very difficult for me now, and if i cant teach anything objectively, then i would rather not do it at all, and i cant be objective about this war. You began to wonder, can you really teach the kids that this is the government of the people . All the people you know seem to have one feeling, but the government seems to have another. You wonder if youre being unpatriotic, as youre told you are when youre questioned, and when you work against government policy. I dont feel any less patriotic. Almost a year from the time we were notified that his plane had gone down, there was a prisoner release, and somehow one of those prisoners knew that my son was alive and was in prison. I dont know what personally i what i would do or say to my son if i had it to do over again and he was leaving. Certainly, i would say something. I wouldnt just let him go away not realizing what war was like. This, i think, is the thing that i think about often. Whether it would have impressed him at the age the young man is. It bothered me because you could always think perhaps my son would be here, and perhaps he wouldnt be facing the bleakness of every day in prison, and the bleakness of no future that he can see other than prison. Just perhaps. Had i said what war was like. I think that his father and i both feel that our son is being abandoned, and before you know it, its another christmas and you realize this is the third christmas your son is sitting in prison. When hes shown on some of the films made in prison and you look at his eyes, and a mother recognizes her sons feelings, i think, perhaps better than anyone, and though he doesnt look too bad physically, his eyes look so sad. As his father says, so far away, and then you know that he has that same feeling of despair. You sometimes think, should i go and be near him . Perhaps i could go in and see him occasionally because that becomes the most important thing to you. For u. S. F detention pilots captured in the democratic republic of vietnam. Dear mom and dad, happy wedding anniversary. As for me, im in good health and keeping my spirits up. Say hello to all for me. Love, mark. If im not here in future years when he gets out, at least hell have some record. Hell know that some people cared. That some people were working for them. I may be naive, but i still feel that the majority of the people somehow can make their feelings known. I think thats the only way we can bring it to an end and i can ever see my son again. Here you go. Oh, yeah. Thats right. Try that one again. It is not necessarily important now, the war, as far as we are concerned. What happened to us, what happened to roy. It is what we to eliminate the can do possibility of war in the lives of our children, all children, not just our children. Oh, boy. Oh. [child talking] he is from a long line of ranching people. They ride horses. They work very hard physically, and they enjoy that excitement and challenge of a rodeo. Oh, man. [laughter] you know, a bull in the arena is just not anything, and he put such a value upon his ability to ride, because he thought it made him happy, and it did. But it does require Perfect Health and good coordination, particularly two good arms and two good legs, and im worried about him an awful lot. I will give you another chance. Everything else ive been able to get together, but now religious people are probably shaking worse. I was brought up in the church of christ. Its a fairly straight church. Of course, then i had to go to vietnam and do these things that i was taught all of my life were improper. To this very day when i walk in a church, i feel like a hypocrite. I feel like i dont belong there, and i know you shouldnt feel that way in a church. Sometimes i think that if i go to a church and participate, then im just living a lie, and i dont want my children to see me living a lie. Where are you going now . Dont run off. When roy was injured i tried to think about how he was taking it before i ever even saw him for the first time, because i knew the telegram said prognosis poor. But the pain, really, of the whole injury, or what happened, really didnt start then. It was later, when i would see him in the wheelchair, and other parents were playing with their children, you know. Throwing the football, and i kind of thought i knew how he felt not being able to do that, and there were a lot of times when i was alone with our child, that i would see other families together. And im sorry. [crying] it was hard to get adjusted to everything. The way it turned out. You cant go out me, i cant go out and play football with my kids and teach them how. Things like that. Its hard. But it comes around. The main thing is i cant let myself, if you get to feeling sorry for yourself and fall into that pattern, feel like the world owes you a living for it, its going to rub off on my kids. And they are going to grow up right. And im not bitter against anyone, except just the way things are. They need to be changed. This war has got to be stopped. [bird chirping] [dog barking] when he was home, everything he had done on the farm, he tried to redo. He built fences. He took on the wagon and picked up the junk around. He lined up the machinery. He planted trees. He mowed the lawn. He plowed. He stayed in the field the last night he stayed in the field the last night until 10 30. And i think he knew that he wasnt going to come back. I used to get up in the morning before i would go to work. I used to tune into sydney, australia, and get the firsthand news 12 hours ahead before we would get it here. And about every three days we always got a letter from him. So we could follow his footsteps every day in the jungles. On thursday, that would have been the 19th of february, everything was upsidedown, as far as my world was concerned. And i couldnt grasp, i didnt know what was wrong. I knew something was wrong, and i suppose this was probably the most terrible day in my life, and i cried. I sewed, and i cried, and i sewed. I made drapes. At midnight i called a friend of mine. I said lorraine, i have had it. Whatever is ahead of me, im ready for it. So i was ready saturday morning, and when they came, i knew. When i saw the uniform go up the stairs, i didnt break down, i didnt cry. This is when i probably became the angriest mother in the world and i started my protests that very moment as far as the war was concerned. That saturday morning, it was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining. It was approximately a 45degree temperature. And i was outside the house on the other side of the house. I was working on the antenna for television. And something just told me to come around to the other side of the house. And i walked around. Up the walk, i saw first i saw the sergeant, and i saw the local pastor of our church about 15 to 20 feet from me, and i challenged them, i said is my son dead . He stopped. I said, is my son dead . And the priest said, why dont you come in the house. I said, no, i want to know. So i asked him a third time, is my son dead . And he didnt answer me. I came in the house, i called down to peg, she was down in the rec room. And i said, mike is dead. She came up the steps. The sergeant and the priest were standing in the kitchen. Peg asked him, was my boy killed wednesday morning . And he said i havent told you people yet that your son is dead. She said, well, the military doesnt give you the courtesy of telling you that your son is wounded, but they do fulfill the obligation to tell you that your son has been killed. My husband was upset emotionally. He lost complete control. That was his way, he had to do it that way. I didnt try to stop him. I let him go. I thought he was going to break windows and smash furniture. My first thought was to try to calm him down. Then i thought, what the hell, his son is dead. He has a right to do this. My reaction to the death of my son was 25 years of my life torn out of me. And i was stunned. I couldnt see. I had great hopes for him because he had a great future. I just couldnt see why it had to happen. I was very strong in my bitterness, and i just couldnt accept it. It was only when they brought the body back and i was asked to view it, that i accepted it. When it went to the airport and escorted my boys body to the funeral parlor, i asked to have his dog tags and the military said they still belong to the United States army. I said thats enough. From now on, the boy is mine. And ill bury him as my son. Not as a military soldier anymore. I have to live with this thing. I have to make his death a cause in my household. This is what im doing now. Michael has to have died for something. And i think its my duty to see that he did die for something. If i am protesting the war thats something ill continue, if i am protesting the war, then that is something ill continue to do. My feeling now is a feeling of guilt. I feel that i didnt do enough to enlighten my son. When a mother loses her son, she simply feels she didnt protect him. I suppose even if hes a man. Hes 25 years old. Shes still there fighting for him. I just didnt do it the right way. I think it is a mothers right. It isnt a patriotism thing anymore. This son is yours. Hes part of you. They would have to drag him over my dead body to get him to go now. I was a father of world war ii. Some of us have taken off our uniforms and some of us havent taken off the uniforms. But i took my uniform off when i passed out of the discharge center. And ive had all the wars i want. And as for fathers, i dont understand how fathers can see their sons go to war when they know what war is. I dont understand it. I dont want any more of it. [shoveling sounds] [shoveling sounds] [sound of the wind] [sound of the wind] [shoveling sounds] [sound of the wind] [captions Copyright National cable Satellite Corp 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] i am donna reed owen, another mother for peace. You can write to another mother for peace in beverly hills, california. One million voices raised together will be heard. American history tv is on cspan3 all weekend and on cspan. Org history. You can watch lectures, tours of historic sites, archival films, and see our schedule of upcoming programs. Sunday night on booktv on afterwards, Tara Westover talks about growing up in the idaho mountains with survivalist parents in her book educated, a memoir. I think my mother did a decent job of homeschooling. By the time i came along, she had seven kids, she was a midwife, and there was not a lot on. Ime going i never took an exam and there was never anything like a lecture. At 10 00 p. M. Eastern, the u. S. Surgeon general with his book together, on the impact on loneliness and help. Many experiences of talking to friends on the phone but then find myself scrolling through an and i dont need to do that, it is so accessible it is right there and i fall into it, but it does dilute the quality of our conversation. And we cannot multitask. We do what we think are multitasking, which is between one thing and another very is important for us to ask the question now, how do we have the quality of time with people . March book to be on cspan2. If you like American History tv, keep up with us during the week on facebook, twitter and youtube. Learn about what happened this day in history and see preview clips of upcoming programs. While the west cspanhistory. cspanhistory. When it was over, four students were dead and nine wounded. Next on American History tv, we are joined by the author of 67 shots kent state and the. End of american the vietnam war and actions in the white house that set the stage for the National Guard firing on