Work of National Importance

This past weekend we worshipped with East Union and Lower Deer Creek Mennonite Churches, both of the rural Kalona, IA area. This was the first time the two churches had ever held a joint worship service. It was an exciting service to participate in, and kudos to Pastors Don Patterson and Jay Miiller (and all the behind the scenes people) who worked hard to pull it all together.

In the afternoon, we held another CPS story telling time. Five men participated in the service (Eldon Rhodes, Wally Fisher, Vurton Miller [sp?] Clayton White, and Mark Swartzendruber), and as I soon discovered, if everyone who had participated in CPS been present and willing to share in front of people, we probably would have been able to tell stories all day. The five that participated were full of stories, however, and provided a well-rounded description of the CPS program.

During World War I, it was not uncommon for conscientious objects to be beaten, starved, or imprisoned. In response to WWI experiences, Mennonite leaders helped develop the CPS program, and as I understand it, this sort of program was unprecedented in American history. Part of the understanding of this sort of program, is that the CO’s would also be performing work of national importance that would not be directly connected to the war effort. Sometimes this happened, as CO’s helped fight forest fires, worked in mental hospitals, or carried livestock across the ocean to war-ravaged Europe.

Other times, it was hard for the men to convince themselves that their jobs actually mattered. One of the East Union man reflected on his time at the Denison IA site, where the CPSers helped do soil conservation/terrace building. He commented that the men would move dirt and dig trenches no matter what the weather was; he remembered going out in January mornings when the temperature was –10 degrees. The only things they had to move the dirt were picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Often, had the CPSers possessed the right equipment, they would have been able to do the job in a couple of days. However, because there was nothing else to assign the CO’s, they did not have large implements to move dirt, so the jobs would take several months. One man from Mt. Lake referred to a certain section of land that the CO’s called “Hell’s Half Acre.” If they’d had big machinery, it would have taken then two days maximum. Since they didn’t, it took about three months. It didn’t help that every time they would make progress, it rained and washed sediment back in their trench, and they’d have to start over.

Another one of the East Union men had participated in medical experiments for the bulk of his CPS days. In North Carolina, Wally Fisher was part of a study that examined colds (like the sneezing, sniffling kind). He and the other CO’s were held in isolation (they were able to talk to each other through the windows, though), and in his words, their job was “every now and again they would spray a mist into the back of our throats, and then closely watch us and monitor our symptoms, how long it took to get sick, how long we were sick, those sorts of things.” Yes, that’s correct, for four months, his job, his work of national importance, was to get infected with colds. As he reflected on this experience, Wally noted, “And you know, they know about as much about colds now as they did back then.”

After this, he transferred to Philadelphia, and was part of a study that was trying to figure out how hepatitis was spread. I should note that this experiment did have an obvious connection to work of national importance; Philadelphia often had outbreaks of the disease, and in Italy, hepatitis caused as many casualties as battles. While in Philadelphia, Wally drank one gallon of contaminated water a day to confirm that unclean drinking water was the source of the disease, and then allow his blood to be drawn by really dull needles.

To summarize, Wally served his country by drinking one gallon of water contaminated with sewage.

Hearing these sorts of stories, where alternative service meant getting infected with colds or drinking contaminated water, makes me thankful for the wide variety of service options available to my generation: social work jobs, education jobs, nursing jobs through organizations like MCC, the Mission Network, EMM, or other non-Mennonite voluntary service organizations. How many more options my generation has than our grandparents’ generation! Yet, the majority of my generation will not even contemplate a year or two of voluntary service, perhaps because of careers, or schooling, because families and churches aren’t encouraging it…there are probably as many reasons as there are dead bugs on our van’s windshield.

Granted, there are other forms of service that do not involve institutions or moving. We can do service in our home communities. But what does it say about our faith, when we are not willing to even consider taking a few years of our lives to intentionally give to God? If some young men and women are willing to place themselves in combat situations because they believe it will serve their country, what more should Christians do to serve the kingdom of God?


Matt Troyer-Miller