Pray For Peace

Letter to the Editor, written by Kathleen Temple, an actively engaged EPOC member!

“When I was a child, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought into sharp focus the extreme danger of nuclear war. “Pray For Peace” was seared into our minds and hearts as it was broadcast into public view every day. Where my family lived, “Pray For Peace” was printed on postage stamps, it was scrawled on abandoned buildings. It was front and center on church publications. “Pray For Peace,” along with other public education about war and peace, made many of us ever more aware that belligerence between Washington, D.C., and Moscow was verging perilously close to nuclear conflagration. The entire society recoiled from what we knew could annihilate all of us.

The risk of nuclear conflagration by intent or by accident, though it is as high right now as it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, is not much in the public eye. The danger of nuclear escalation is not often discussed. Neither is the population well educated about what post-nuclear destruction would be like.

I suspect that if U.S. Rep. Ben Cline and Sens. Warner and Kaine would give more thought to the chance that belligerence between Washington, D.C., and Moscow, now taking the form of proxy war which is killing Ukrainian people, will lead to nuclear annihilation of the entire world, they would push vigorously, persistently, and loudly for peace talks now, right now.”

Kathleen Temple, Experiential Peace Organizing Committee

Rockingham County