In The World But Not Of It
May. 27th, 2024 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo The Two World Wars tested the Quaker commitment to Peace.
Some men of military age simply turned their back on it and joined up. My grandfather was one of them- and that was him done with the Quakers
Others became conscientious objecters- and thereby risked imprisonment and a possible death sentence. No Quaker was actually executed, but one or two were marched out in front of a firing squad only to be reprieved at the very last moment. Nasty.....
And yet others chose the third way- serving as non-combatants.
And one way of being in uniform but not a killer was to join the FAU- the Friends Ambulance Unit.
FAU members served across the world in both World Wars, at the front and behind the lines. After the fall of Burma FAU members relocated to China where they trained medics and set up hospitals.
They often found themselves treading a very fine line. During the Great War it was suggested to them that empty ambulances returning to the front might want to carry ammunition. The FAU said, "It's a thought, but no thank you"....
I'm researching this stuff. It's leading me down all sorts of interesting by-ways....
A guy at the Meeting yesterday offered us, as a kind of a mantra- "In the world but not of it". Like any good mantra it questions as much as it informs. Here's an idea, it says, but what do you make of it and how are you going to put it into practice?
Frank J Stevens, an FAU driver, with his vehicle in Wolfsburg, Germany, 1945? (downloaded from Wikipedia)
Some men of military age simply turned their back on it and joined up. My grandfather was one of them- and that was him done with the Quakers
Others became conscientious objecters- and thereby risked imprisonment and a possible death sentence. No Quaker was actually executed, but one or two were marched out in front of a firing squad only to be reprieved at the very last moment. Nasty.....
And yet others chose the third way- serving as non-combatants.
And one way of being in uniform but not a killer was to join the FAU- the Friends Ambulance Unit.
FAU members served across the world in both World Wars, at the front and behind the lines. After the fall of Burma FAU members relocated to China where they trained medics and set up hospitals.
They often found themselves treading a very fine line. During the Great War it was suggested to them that empty ambulances returning to the front might want to carry ammunition. The FAU said, "It's a thought, but no thank you"....
I'm researching this stuff. It's leading me down all sorts of interesting by-ways....
A guy at the Meeting yesterday offered us, as a kind of a mantra- "In the world but not of it". Like any good mantra it questions as much as it informs. Here's an idea, it says, but what do you make of it and how are you going to put it into practice?
Frank J Stevens, an FAU driver, with his vehicle in Wolfsburg, Germany, 1945? (downloaded from Wikipedia)
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Date: 2024-05-27 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-27 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-27 06:59 pm (UTC)This was one of the first facts I learned about Donald Swann beyond his partnership with Michael Flanders.
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Date: 2024-05-27 07:01 pm (UTC)