Whenever a holiday rolls around on which we celebrate America, like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, or the Fourth of July, I begin to feel a little bit conflicted. On the one hand, I feel the weight of the tremendous debt I owe to the many who fought for my country in the past, and who sacrificed everything for the freedom that I enjoy today. But on the other hand, I find myself convicted of the necessity of pacifism as taught by my faith.

Now, there are good people who share my faith but do not share my conviction, and I will grant that it is an incredibly difficult issue. I do not have an answer for every objection, beyond that I know that I am called to obey, even at the cost of my own life. I cannot love my neighbor as myself if I count my life as of more value than his. The more difficult question comes when one is forced to give up not only her own life, but also the life of her family, friends, and country. Can we resort to violence in order to find justice? In order to save innocent life? In order to protect freedom? Once again, I think good people will disagree on the issue.

I am left with this dilemma; as a pacifist, how do I honor those who loved me enough to die for me, while disagreeing that they ought to have done so?

It is a profound privilege to be able to sit here, on the internet that was invented as a military weapon, writing about an ideology that would have resulted in my death just a few hundred years before, on a platform devoted to the free speech that others died to protect. I cannot sit here and condemn those who went to war, believing in the depths of their hearts that what they were doing was not just morally alright, but morally obligated as their proper duty. I am only granted the freedom to obey my conscience because others have followed theirs into battle for mine.

Does that mean I give up my conviction? Do I reject the content of my faith? Should I applaud violence as a tool for good?

I once sat in on a Sunday school group, made up of seventy, eighty, and ninety year-old people. We were discussing the second chapter of the first Isaiah, in which the prophet famously declares, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” We wrestled with the text for a long time, with several World War II veterans debating the possibility of that day. I asked for their opinion on the best way to honor the sacrifice of veterans, and there was a little bit of a silence in the room. One dear old soul, a fellow Baylor Bear named Tom, turned his head to me and said with sad, glistening eyes, “Don’t make any more.”

And the more veterans I talk to, the more often this same sentiment is expressed. One veteran of Vietnam recently told me that the true pacifists are those who have stood on the battle lines, fought beside their brothers many of whom they never saw again, and have come back to the United States. He explained that the men whose lives were ruined by war are the ones who most passionately oppose it.

I have not conducted an official poll of veteran’s opinions of war, nor could I find any other solid data that could actually tell me much of anything. But just googling “veterans opinions of war” brings up dozens of articles asking our leaders not to go to war. And my experience personally in the overwhelming number of cases has shown similar results; even if the veteran was eager to go to war in the first place, he or she is not eager to send others to the same fate.

Very often in American history, and in fact in all history, wars have fought because of the manipulation of the public to the will of the elite. I disagree with the wars, not with the men and women who love me and my country enough to die to protect it. I, along with all people in pursuit of peace (and all people in general), must be careful to differentiate the idea we oppose from the people who proport it or who willingly submit to it out of greater devotion to their families, neighborhoods, and countries.

So, on this Fourth of July, I will honor the veterans of past wars by advocating that America create no more veterans. I will honor those who have come before to protect my freedom by using that freedom to ensure that no more lives are wasted in callous and personal wars. I will honor the flags the fly in the cemeteries throughout this country, in the hope that bullets, bombs, or poison will never add another body to those graves.