I was drafted into the U.S. Army 38 years ago at the height of the Vietnam War. I never would have volunteered. I served my two years and came out specialist E-5 and an acting sergeant. I was trained for infantry but missed Vietnam because of a series of events, most notably being at the right place at the right time: The company clerk went AWOL at Christmas, and I could type, write and manage an Army training company office. I stuck it out there for 19 months a functionary in a war machine.I call it a godsend. Like many military veterans, I saw so much duplicity, bending rules and look-the-other-way activity during my military stint. I could be as cynical as the next guy by what I saw in the Army and how it really operates. So when I got out in 1971, I never looked back with fondness or nostalgia or as time well spent. And I certainly never encouraged my son or daughter to join the voluntary military services. It is heartening to see the bravado and courage of parents who are countering the efforts of military recruiters to get into our high school and find young men and women to fill the U.S. military forces. They are encouraging parents and students to take and fill out opt-out-of-the-military postcards that remove the names of high school students from public school rosters that military recruiters use to mail materials to upperclassmen about grand opportunities in the military and subsequently talk to them about the service. The activists represent such groups as Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, the Arizona Counter Recruitment Coalition, Parents Against Violence in Education and the End the War Coalition. When school resumed the past week, many volunteers showed up outside schools distributing the forms. When Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, a provision included rules that schools that received federal funding had to provide a list of students to the armed forces. Yet parents were given the option to have their sons and daughters names pulled from such lists so they would not be contacted. Wide numbers of parents are unaware of the options, but the groups have worked hard and appeared on talk shows and in press conference to raise the issue and alert adults and students. In the Phoenix Union High School District, 2,200 students names were taken off, according to district spokesman Craig Pletenik. He lamely complained that activists should be handing out cards outside of recruitment stations and not at high schools.The Tolleson Union School District made a change this year by adding the opt-out form in the student handbook so all students would have access to it. They can also keep their names off lists for companies trying to promote school-related products, yearbooks and even college recruiters. Schools typically have to give military recruiters opportunities to visit schools in the same way it does college recruiters. They can set up tables in lunch rooms and lay out their materials. Their giveaways, talk about incentives, skills training and promises of post-military education can be alluring. With recruiters only a few years older than students and giving away things like concert tickets or other freebies, they can be impressionable and create a trust with students that opens the door to signing up for a uniform. Many say teens cannot and shouldnt be pressured to say yes or no to military duty.It raises moral questions, especially as we look at so many troubled nations where children and teens are pressed in the military duty, handed guns and made to kill.The peace movement against the war in Iraq has seen the opt-out provision as a valuable way to make it harder for the military to fill its monthly quotas and cut the stream of soldiers for that war. It give greater comfort to those who believe school campuses are inappropriate places to find people to take up arms and possible lose their lives and limbs. Like in any era of history, if the nation were really attacked or threatened, even the young would respond.Opt-out forms send a valuable message, and it forces recruiters to find other strategies to reach potential GIs.

Barry Bonds paused Tuesday night after stopping on home plate and pointed both arms to the skies, presumably thanking God for making him the major leagues all-time home run record holder. The pause was longer than most moments when Bond hits his towering homers.Moments later, it was more apparent that he was thanking his late father. At the end of thanking the fans, the Giants, the opposing team, the Washington Nationals, his mother, his wife Liz and his three children, Bonds added, My dad! Thank you for everything! Thank you! He plunged one arm heavenward again, showed tears, choked up, and ended his talk. He bent over toward the ground with his cap and handed the microphone to his godfather, the legendary Giants slugger Willie Mays, then walked back to the dugout to cheers as 756 flashed on the scoreboards big screen. He plunged his hat heavenward one more time on that walk.His father, Bobby Bonds, who played 14 major league seasons died of lung cancer and a brain tumor in August 2003 at the age of 57. Oddly Bobby and Barry Bonds are the only two players in major league history to hit at least 300 home runs and steal at least 400 bases.Perhaps, Barry was grateful also for the long quest to be over. Maybe, he genuinely relished his achievement and was giving God the glory, too. He never mentioned God in that moment in history.Despite all the allegations of steroid use and the great record being tainted, it remains a fact that the current all-time home run hitter plays college ball as an Arizona State University Sun Devil (1983-85). With the Giants in the Cactus League for spring training, weve additionally had plenty of opportunities to see him perform.Barring revelations and procedures that could discredit his record, Barry Bonds had better enjoy a record that had belonged for 31 years to Hank Aaron, the icon of my baseball childhood. He had better keep on hitting them to delay the inevitable, because in five to seven years, the Yankees Alex Rodriguez seems destined to surpass his achievement. At a spry 32 years old, A-Rod appears to be one his way to 800 home runs.How about a tidy 777 homeruns before Barry, now 43, hangs it up. Then we can start the A-Rod countdown to yet another record.

We continue to be bewildered by the incessant war in Iraq and the impotence of the populace to bring about any substantive change of direction. The faith community that had been an effective force during the Vietnamese War remains largely passive, tamed and resigned as this war moves into its fifth year. Why arent there demonstrations and protests by people of peace and justice?Recently someone gave me a copy of a pastoral letter that was given out to members of United Church of Christ congregations. It was signed by the Collegium of Officers, the highest level of the national church. There were five names. I spotted the name of the Rev. John Thomas, the churchs general minister and president whom I interviewed last year when he came to the Valley.And I also recognized the name of the Rev. Cally Rogers-Witte, who was here for 10 years as the UCCs Southwest Conference minister. Today, she is the co-executive of the UCC/Disciples Global Ministries and is executive minister of UCCs Wider Church Ministries.The six-paragraph letter issued June 22 was direct and bold. Justified as a means to end oppression, this war has imposed the new oppression of terror on the people of Iraq, it said. Justified as the only way to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction, this war has led to a massive destruction of communal life in Iraq. And while the war has been justified as a way to end the rule of terror, it has only bred more terror, the UCC said. Its relentless bloodshed day after day after day in a civil war in a land that has never known democracy and stumbles as it tries to learn an imported means of governance. The letter talks of the thousands of precious American lives lost and forever altered. And of the tens of thousands more innocent Iraqi lives that are daily offered on the altar of preemptive war and sectarian violence, it goes on. In our name, human rights have been violated, abuse and torture sanctioned, civil liberties dismantled, Iraqi infrastructure and lives destroyed, the UCC asserts. Money going to 21st century warfare could have been used for education, health care and the needs of the poor in this land and around the world.We confess that too often the church has been little more than a silent witness to evil deeds, the statement said as it reached crescendo. We have prayed without protest. We have recoiled from the horror this war has unleashed without resisting the arrogance and folly at its heart. We have been more afraid of the conflict in our churches than outraged over the deceptions that have killed thousands. We have confused patriotism with self-interest..The letter speaks of utter futility, arrogant unilateralism of preemptive war and a call for repentance of our nation.These are strong and fierce words by a mainline Christian denomination seeking to rouse an American people somehow paralyzed to act to end this madness.

When I saw the yellow school bus precariously upright atop part of the Interstate 35W Bridge that collapsed Wednesday in Minneapolis, I was reminded of my driving a school bus on I-35 several times through the Twin Cities in the summer of 1966.That predated, by more than a year, the completion and opening of the I-35W Bridge now rubble. The 1,900-foot, eight-lane bridge opened in November1967 so I never crossed it with a bus, but had later by car. Between my sophomore and junior year at Iowa State University, I signed on to be a summer camp counselor at a YMCA camp in the Chippewa National Forest of north central Minnesota. It was near a tiny spot called Wirt 40 miles northwest of Grand Rapids. Boys had signed up at the Ames (Iowa) YMCA for a month at a time at camp. The Iowa State YMCA chapter provided the leadership and transportation. It was an idyllic summer of canoeing through strings of lakes, seeing birch canoes made, hunting for snipe with nave children, helping the Forest Service trim trees and clean brush and being amazed at how late it got dark in the North Woods in early summer. I would be the first of three summers that I took campus YMCA-sponsored trips. (It was followed by 1967 to Uruguay and 1968 to Ecuador). Because I had driven a school bus for my high school band a few years before, I was recruited as the counselor to transport the teens and preteens on the trips that were slightly more than 400 miles each way. I was assigned an old bus that the Campus Y owned. It was sluggish but was generally reliable. Its been 41 years so details are fuzzy, but I recall before one trip, I had overextended the wearing time on my hard contact lenses. My eyelids screamed with burning pain as I tried to sleep the night before the trip. I worried I would not recover and could not drive. In the end, I stuck to my regular glasses and was able to drive. It would be the bus final long-distance trip.North of Minneapolis, the engine continued to overheat. The temperature needle shot to the top. We repeatedly made stops to add more water to the radiator. Sometimes we resorted to roadside drinking fountains to find water. Going was rough and slow. Finally near dark about 30 miles from our destination, the engine gave out, and we were dead in our tracks. Staff at the camp came and rescued us. I would never drive that bus back to Ames.That summer when I was 20 I was counselor to a boy named Jim whose father, the Rev. John Davies, was the pastor of Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames where I attended. Davies had captivated me with his powerful preaching, especially on social justice issues. He spoke passionately about peace and raised issues about the war in Vietnam as it was building. He had an amazing intellect. John Davies later served as pastor (1973-83) at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Tucson and is now living in retirement there. I still have some of his published sermons in my home files. He set a standard of pastoral excellence at a key time of faith formation in my life. Catastrophes like that Twin Cities bridge collapse typically spell massive death. We should be full of thanksgiving and even amazed that the death toll isnt worse. We can be grateful that the lives were spared for 52 children and nine adults on the bus returning from a field trip. May those hospitalized make full recovery.May we do something about our troubled bridges over water.

I dont know if its possible in America to reach age 60 and NOT somehow become a member of the AARP. The giant army of American seniors and retirees absorbs and recruits folks automatically at a certain age or so it seems. For sure, several pieces of mail arrive weekly from them.Their AARP Magazine, which climbs the highest circulation of any magazine in the world, caught our attention a week ago with word that Chandler was No. 3 among Americas Five Top Cities to Live. It described the city as gracious desert living combined with an activist twist that encourages residents to get involved with the spirit of the town. A city climate and plenty of parks and open space provide ample recreation opportunities.The September-October issue will reveal the results of a poll of more than 1,000 people 50 and older on their beliefs about what happens after death. Belief in God and heaven is sound in that big share of Americans. As for hell, there are notably fewer believers.Over the years, weve seen countless surveys examining Americans attitudes and believes about the afterlife, said AARP editor Steve Slon. But we wanted to hear specifically from the AARP generation the 78 million Americans who have been transformed the way we live and think, including the basic principles we believe in.For starters, 94 percent believed in God; 86 percent believed in heaven; 70 believed in hell; and 77 percent said they are not frightened by thoughts of what happens after death. Of those who believe in heaven, 29 percent said heaven only comes through a belief in Jesus Christ. Twenty-five percent said those who are good get into heaven. Another 10 percent explains that the people who believe in God are welcomed in heaven. Add another 10 percent saw few tests to enter heaven. They had a come-one, come-all philosophy that sees heavens gates wide open to everyone.For those who see themselves making it through the pearly gates (88 percent), two in three see everyone getting to heaven. Some, polled by AARP, said it would be as low as 15 percent. Forty percent of people believing in hell said that realm takes in people who are bad or people have sinned. Seventeen percent said hell takes in those people who do not believe in Jesus Christ.Forty percent of heaven-believers envision it as a place, while 47 percent said it is a state of being. For hell, the percentages were 43 percent state of being and 42 percent place.Theres overlap, AARP found, with beliefs in heaven and reincarnation simultaneously held by the same people. Some 23 percent believed in reincarnation the highest support coming in the American Northeast. Baby Boomers were more likely to accept reincarnation.Women, far more than men, hold a belief in spirits or ghosts (60 to 40 percent). The older that people were, the less likely they held such beliefs: 64 percent of Boomers, 51 percent of those in their 60s and 38 percent of those age 70 or older.As many as 50 percent of those in the AARP poll living in the American West said they have felt the presence of a ghost or spirit.

A U.S. District judge on Tuesday ruled it is OK to use houses of worship as public polling places and that it does not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. It was a reasonable ruling, a practical decision. Yet it should send a statement to those who make church and temple space available for public elections that staff should do all they can to make the settings neutral and not an opportunity to promote faith.The Appignani Humanist Legal Center, which is part of the American Humanist Association, had filed the case, Rabinowitz v. Anderson, last Nov. 26 in response to abuses in the 2006 mid-term elections.The plaintiff, Jerry Rabinowitz, was assigned to vote at Emmanuel Catholic Church in Delray Beach, Fla. Before entering the church, he had to walk past a church-sponsored anti-abortion banner framed by multiple crosses. Once inside where he checked in to vote, he said he encountered prominent symbols and slogans. Such a religiously charged environment can serve to intimidate or unduly influence a persons vote, said Mel Lipman, American Humanists president and constitutional law professor, argued. He pointed to studies that showed environmental cues have a measurable effect on electoral results. Therefore, the government must provide a neutral setting for voters, free from religious or other influences.The Humanists argued that, across America, churches are the most common polling locations. Often when poll workers show up, they are presented with their room or rooms whose walls typically are not changed. If they are Sunday school rooms, they display kids art work and posters. If it is a fellowship hall, there may be grand banners and crosses. Many citizens are surrounded on all sides by religious symbolism and sometimes politicized religious propaganda, said Roy Speckhardt, the associations president. As a result, it creates a religiously charged and politically based atmosphere and promotes whatever church is hosting the voting. But U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks did not find the pervasive use of churches at polling places violating the principle of government neutrality. This is not a case where a governmental actor actively placed a religious icon or message at a voting location, or on another piece of government property, he said. Voting in a secular election, even in the presence of religious objects, is not equivalent to state-sponsored prayer at a public school graduation.Obviously the ramifications of banning houses of worships as polls would be huge. They work out so well because there are so many of them and they are spread out fairly evenly across the landscape. They have ample space, restrooms and great parking and are rarely occupied on Tuesdays when most elections take place. Schools, of course, are perfect, when they can be used, but often there is not a room available on a school day.Elections have to be somewhere. The key seems to be asking clergy and campus leaders to go to some trouble to remove temporarily what might be offensive to other people or provide the space that is the most neutral. If they were banned, bars and lounges may be the next most ubiquitous venues for polls assuring more votes for Jack Daniels and John Barleycorn.