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After the flap last week over the reporting of DOD General Counsel Jeh Johnson’s remarks on Martin Luther King and what he might think of our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, it’s good to find out that someone in the Defense Department understands MLK: Commander Roger E. VanDerWerken, USMC USN [corrected, see below]. Cmdr. VanDerWerken is the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group chaplain stationed at Quantico (it figures that a chaplain would know his MLK), and last Thursday in the “Chaplain’s Corner” column in the Quantico Sentry, he wrote this:
On Monday we celebrated the birthday of this great clergyman, pre-eminent civil rights leader and proud American. It was helpful to reflect upon the sources of his inspiration. According to ‘‘Stride Toward Freedom,” ‘‘Christ furnished the spirit and motivation through the Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7), while the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi furnished the method, that of non-violent resistance.”
Non-violent resistance is what brought down the racist, segregationalist policies of 1960s America. The six principles of non-violence that King used in leading this massive movement include: 1) it is not for cowards, 2) it does not seek to humiliate others, 3) it takes a stand against evil, not the evil-doer, 4) it is willing to accept suffering without retaliation, 5) it commands us to love, and 6) it trusts, ultimately, that the universe is on the side of justice.
These principles might prove helpful in facing the injustices we might see in our world today. As we celebrate the accomplishments of this great American, may we also remember the spiritual principles that guided his life.
I’m guessing no one on duty at the gate at Quantico yesterday had read the Chaplain’s Corner, nor had those at “the top” who ordered Jane Hamsher and David House’s detention and delay until visiting hours were over.
Honestly, this looks like a kinder and gentler version of the tactics of Bull Connor. The USMC may not have brought out the firehoses, but they certainly reacted to people taking a principled non-violent stand against evil with Bull Connor’s attitude toward protesters: “I’m the law around here, and we don’t like outside agitators coming round and making trouble.” . . .
David has been detained at the airport, his computer seized and held for months with no explanation. The McCarthy-esque actions of the security agencies has terrified all of these idealistic young people. It is exceptionally admirable that David and others persist in supporting Bradley Manning despite it all.
The net effect of the MP’s actions today was to escalate the climate of threats and intimidation around David, a 23 year-old who just graduated from college, and cut Manning off from any personal contact with the one person who is still showing up to visit him after the government consciously scared everyone else off.
I am very happy that I went, and could be there to support David, because one of the first things the MPs said to us when we arrived — long before they asked for driver’s license, social security numbers, registration, phone numbers, quizzed us about the addresses on our licenses, etc, etc, was that they had orders to do all of this. Which means they were planning to detain us long before we got there. They were going to use any excuse to keep David from visiting Manning, and try to intimidate him from coming back.
What a contrast. While Cmdr. VanDerWerken was praising MLK inside the fences, the MPs at the gate were ordered to follow in Bull Connor’s footsteps.
The good chaplain may want to remind his colleagues at Quantico how well that path worked out for old Bull.
(h/t to dcwriterdawn for the photo of the Birmingham civil rights sculpture)
12 Comments
Comparing our men in uniform to a notorious Democrat segregationist is reprehensible.
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Great reminder, we’re mixing it up now like it or not.
Half the population is so young they don’t know bull conner from John Brown or for that matter Vietnam and our virulent anti war attitude , which to them was a couple of pages in their history books .
You write like you saw the bark peeled from large mature trees as the high pressure fire hoses were swung around to attack, by our government, innocents peacefully petitioning their government for a redress of their grievances. It was a truly disgusting sight.
Great post, Peterr, thank you so much for this.
The Pentagon PR office must be going off the rails, after just putting their Jeh Johnson missteps to bed, and now this? Just as the White House rolls out their sweet, sweet SOTU?
Not good for them. Not good at all.
Just think of the clown who authorized this. What was the thinking? I think it could have been aimed at Jane, to intimidate her for her work. Or it might have been aimed at Assange, purely ti intimidate. Either way whoever did it is a pos, a poor American, and must be rooted out like a pig in shit. Or was it the christianist cabal, ready to take their rightful leadership positions, according to god.
For those of more tender years, Bull Connor provided . . . how to put it? . . . secluded writing accommodations to Martin Luther King.
King thanked him for the hospitality with his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail.”
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/annotated_letter_from_birmingham/
Nit: If the good chaplain, who seems to know his history, is a Commander, he would be in the Navy and assigned to the Marines, in the way that the Marines always borrow the Navy’s medical corpsmen. If he were in the Marines, his rank would be Lt. Colonel.
Commander Roger E. VanDerWerken, USMC…in the interests of accuracy, “Commander” is not a commissioned officer’s rank in the Marine Corps -it is a US Naval officer’s rank equivalent to Lt. Col. in the Corps. Nor would it be unusual for a USN officer be assigned to duties at a USMC post – for example, most battlefield medics (IIRC) assigned to the Corps are Naval personnel.
Not that the rank of Mr. VanDerWerken matters in the slightest when listening to his message about MLK and decency. One hopes that his superiors all the way up the chain to Commander in Chief have heard it and are moved to improve the conditions of Mr. Manning’s treatment from this point forward, but i believe I am expecting far too much from the hypocrites in charge of this country.
earl beat me to it about the good chaplain’s service branch, i see…
I see that the commander is chaplain for the specialist Marine unit that trains US Embassy guards, which recruits from the most talented Marines in service. Good to see that forthrightness is making its way among the elite.
At the end of the “Chaplain’s Corner” piece linked to in the post, it identifies the author like this: “Cmdr. VanDerWerken is the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group Chaplian”
I took that to mean he’s a Marine, but I’ll defer to others more familiar with ranks in the two services.
But while we’re picking nits . . . it should be “chaplain” and not “chaplian,”
Corrected in the post.
Thanks.
Washington Heights Counter Recruitment and a group from a South Bronx black Lutheran church cosponsored a house party last weekend in celebration of MLK. All funds collected are for Courage to Resist and part of the $350 we raised is earmarked for the Bradley Manning campaign. Stay strong.
In struggle,
Peg Rapp
rap8643 at aol dot com