Our local paper carries the high school newspaper as an insert when it is printed. And so, I was reading through the newspaper this past week, when one of the boys in our small community (who goes to school in the larger community, where the paper is located) wrote a column about a few random thoughts. He glibly discussed the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and mentioned that 95 percent of their casualties were civilian.

Then, in closing, he mentioned that he would put "a fist in the face of any veteran who tells me Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified".

He deserves a medal, at least, for pointing out precisely why I, as a pacifist, want nothing to do with most of the contingent who have allied themselves with the anti war movement. See, his comment demonstrates why he should not for one second consider himself a pacifist.

Ghandi did not threaten physical violence to defend his pacifist beliefs. Nor, in fact, has any pacifist throughout history. And yet that philosophy, whether stated or simply implied, has seemed to be a prevailing thought among most of those who now claim to be pacifists in their anti war stance.

We have a lot to fear if we live in a world where those who claim to work for peace advocate for physical violance to advance their cause. Although I did briefly toy with the possibility that this gentleman's statement could have been deliberately ironic, the context in which it was made as well of personal knowledge of him as a person quickly drove that out of my head. He is not a person who is remotely open to differing opinions.

Possibly the worst travesty of all was that his little fatwah was declared on Veteran's Day.