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(Mount Clipping in Space Below) ” Why I Am Joining the “Phoenix” By Georcr Laxey Tana of my cousins have already gone to Vietnam as soldiers. Their going has seemed more natural than mine, for it is natural for men to leave their families and ge to strange places for the purpose of war, but not for the purpose of peace. But how does one explain a Jeading, except by re- counting the symptoms: a tight and burning chest, ‘a certainty as great as the certainty that 1 exist at all, 2 depression as I realize the unsettling this will cause in my family and in my work? A Quaker Action Group could have decided not to send me, the Upland Institute could have decided not to give me a leave of absence, but I felt Thad no choice about the matter at all. If I remember my history, Marmaduke Stephenson left his plow in the middle of che field when he sailed to Puritan Massachu- setts with a group of Friends. : A divine leading is by definition beyond discussion. » i { my understanding of the world is that there should points of contact between a leading and reason, be een a leading and the experience of others, between a4 leading and the prophetic tradition in religion. Here 1 should like to explore these points. Why should you engage in this adventure halfway around the world when you already have made so élear your opposition to the war by actions here in the United States? Three years ago I wrote letters against the war and voted for “peace candidate” Lyndon Johnson, and the war escalated. Two years ago I lobbied my congressman and organized demonstrations, and the U. S. military com- mitment swelied. Last year J sat overlong in the Senate gallery protesting the bombing, and I stopped paying the telephone tax, and more napalm killed more of my brothers and sisters. In such a situation should not Friends employ ever more forthright means of exposing the atrocity of this war, even if this means sailing . through the Seventh Fleet to take humanitarian aid Girectlyto our suffering friends?’ ~~» _ Undicate page, name Bewepapes, city and « -565,566-"Friends P "Sournal” | Philadelphia, Pa. 11/1/67 “* Vol.13,No.21 Fiteeorge Lakey ““Prances Williams Editor: Browin * | Title: