Editor,
On June 25, 1976, my grandparents in Illinois were murdered in their sleep. They were retired farmers in their 80s.
Six years later, a young Anglo man named Dale was arrested and confessed. Months after that, I wrote him, offering my forgiveness. He wrote me back — profoundly repentant for his terrible crime. The first time I visited Dale in prison, tears came to his eyes. He deeply appreciated my forgiveness and friendship. He suffered severe depression. He yearned to get out of prison someday to prove to people he could live a changed life.
He wrote letters of sincere apology in two area newspapers there.
I have 60 letters he wrote me before he committed suicide in prison in 1989.
U.S. presidents murder thousands of grandparents and children in war. Sadly, no U.S. president has publicly repented and apologized for his mass murders. Dale murdered two people and demonstrated genuine repentance, but many USA-ans who honor U.S. presidents would consider Dale a no-good devil. This is moral insanity.
I have stated in my will that if someone kills me, I want family and friends to offer forgiveness and friendship to that person. We are all more than the worst thing we ever did.
George Mizo was a Native American soldier in the Vietnam War. He realized the war was wrong. The United States used the chemical weapons napalm and Agent Orange to mutilate and murder thousands of women and children. After George Mizo’s whole platoon, except for him, was killed, he became totally committed to stopping the war as a soldier within the military. He paid a heavy price for his stand of conscience. He was sent to prison. He also suffered from Agent Orange-related illness.
Years later, George Mizo founded the project Friendship Village in Vietnam. It is a home for victims of the war to live in and to be cared for. Many had been poisoned by Agent Orange. The U.S. military sprayed this terrible chemical poison all over Vietnam, causing many children to be born tragically deformed for possibly the next 500 years.
U.S. and North Vietnamese soldiers who fought each other many years ago now work together at Friendship Village. These former enemies work for reconciliation and healing. George Mizo’s partner in building Friendship Village is the North Vietnamese general who killed Mizo’s platoon. I strongly compliment hero of conscience George Mizo and many other veterans who changed from waging war to waging peace.
John Newton was a cruel slave trader more than 200 years ago. He bought slaves along the coast of Africa. He chained them in dark, stifling, hellish conditions for weeks below deck on his slave ships. He later confessed that some African men, women and youth died from his miserable confinement. They were buried in the ocean. John Newton kidnapped, tortured and murdered these human beings.
But eventually Newton woke up. He turned from his evil. He became a strong leader to stop slavery. He changed from a brutal slave trader to a passionate crusader against slavery. He wrote the words to the beloved song “Amazing Grace.”
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“Amazing grace/how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me/I once was lost/but now am found/was blind but now/I see.”
I am agnostic. I am no longer religious, but I know no matter what evil we have done we can wake up, we can change from our stupid, evil ways. That includes the young man who attacked me this past August 4 on Central Avenue.
Don Schrader
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