I Was a Nonviolent S.D.S. Radical: A Beginning Memoir of My Life in the 1960's

Late in 1964, I experienced a spiritual transformation, went from being a gung-ho rightwing individual (like my parents and work boss) who supported the bombing of Vietnam to realizing that such a war stance is contrary to the Way of Jesus as presented in the Sermon on the Mount, etc.

So, instead of joining the Navy Reserves after high school and going to Vietnam to kill communists for Christ, I chose a third way. At the time all of my relatives, friends, everyone I knew in Nebraska supported the war.

But there was a former missionary and a Mennonite family who also opposed war. Thus, I became a conscientious objector.

I applied for that status with my draft board. Even after those 2 witnesses vouched that I was opposed to war including the Vietnam War, our Draft Board in Lincoln, Nebraska still interviewed me, grilled me personally on various specific violent situations, such as what if your family is attacked by killers, etc.

Finally, they gave me the I.O. status, which meant that when drafted, I would be performing nonviolent alternative service, working with poor people in Latin America or with mental patients, etc. instead of killing.

A couple of years later, when I was drafted and taking my physical with many other young men, the friendly Black medical sergeant who was testing me, after seeing my conscientious objector status, started calling me “Brother Love.”

Then in the summer of 1965, after my graduation from Lincoln Southeast High School, a week later, I started attending the University of Nebraska. With in a few weeks, I became involved with the student protestors, those opposed to the War and opposed to segregation and racism.

The first protest I attended was for the latter. It was one against Apartheid in South Africa.

With in a few weeks, I also joined a new social action-civil rights-anti-war organization called Students for a Democratic Society.

Of course, this was long before when S.D.S. turned to hate and violence, arson, attacks on police, etc. like it did with its splinter group, the WeatherUnderground and its bombings, arson, and violence at various universities including Kent State University in 1970.

To make a long complex story brief, by the spring of 1967, I was living as a spiritual hippie in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, but got drafted that summer. BELOW is a picture of me in the spring of 1967.

I was sent to serve my service time at a mental hospital for emotionally disturbed children and teens in Trevose, Pennsyvania, got evicted from my apartment for an anti-war sign on the back of my Greenbriar van, “the Mystical Hippopotamus”:-), etc.

As the nonviolent protests of the 60’s turned to hate and violence, even arson, bombings, and killings, I despaired. Where had the wondrous nonviolent altrusim of Martin Luther King, John Lewis and others gone?

I very strongly rejected the new hatred and violence of the extremists. IInstead, I emphasized more and more the Quaker and MLK way of reconciliation.

Standing in silent Quaker-like vigils against the War, we tried in many conversations to reason with others (both violent and nonviolent), including a soldier who had just come back from Vietnam, where he had been seriously injured in his left leg.

That whole tragic absurd period of history was “the Best of Times, the Worst of Times.”

Still radical after all these years*

Dan Wilcox

*an obvious paraphrase of a famous Paul Simon song title:-)