#1054 – Dick Bernard: Tom Atchison's Memorial; and two upcoming events

Saturday I went to the Memorial Service for Tom Atchison, deceased earlier this month at 93. His picture from many years earlier is below; his brief bio is here: Tom Atchison002.

Tom Atchison, undated photo

Tom Atchison, undated photo


Tom and I got along very well, serving together for three years as President and Treasurer of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers (MAP) 2005-2007 (his service with MAP far pre-dated my own; I believe he was one of the founders of the now 20-year old alliance.)
I didn’t know till the memorial that Tom was “absolutely critical to the start of Wolf Ridge Environmental Center which began on Earth Day, 1969″ and has since given educational programming to “over 500,000 people”.
One of my own remembrances of Tom seems pertinent here. Sometime during our working relationship with MAP, I distinctly remember him sharing with me that when he graduated from Princeton in 1944 as a physicist, he was offered a job with the “Manhattan Project“. That project, of course, is synonymous with “The Bomb”; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He declined the opportunity, and spent the rest of his working career as a “rock guy”, a research scientist with the U.S. Bureau of Mines; and spent his spare time working for a better world in peace and with justice for all.
Strange indeed how decisions made, or not, live on for all of us.
Tom’s generation is now rapidly exiting.
We tend to read and see, still, the war stories of those who served in the military (yes, Tom was a Naval officer in WWII and then in Korea, retiring from the Naval Reserves in the 1960s).
Too seldom is it recognized that great numbers of these veterans lived on, and in one unsung way or another committed to the need for peace for the survival of all of us.
I am privileged to have known many of these unsung heroes.
There is much more to be said, of course. There always is.
Farewell, Tom. You done good!
POSTNOTE:
(click to enlarge both pictures. Text of both is here: Fliers001
Sunday, we went to a small but incredibly powerful exhition at St. Paul’s Landmark Center entitled “From War to Reconciliation: Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Exhibition”. The exhibit runs August 22 – November 28, 2015. Here’s the information:
Hiroshima Nagasaki001
Today the debate continues, on the pros and cons of the Iran Nuclear Deal. We’ll be at the below session this afternoon. Be there if you can.
Iran Nuclear Deal001
It is ironic to me that for some reason the awful results in 1945 of the most deadly weapons ever invented are now, 70 years later, presented as justification for some countries, especially our own, to hold on to immense stockpiles of even more deadly weapons, while at the same time demanding that others be denied the right.
It is hardly rational to talk the talk of Peace, while insisting on being armed to the teeth, and threatening, in effect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki like solutions to today’s international problems.
We should be the ones “beating the swords into ploughshares” as a witness to the intrinsic evil of war, especially of nuclear and similar weapons designed to destroy us all.
Nuclear weapons, from display at Hiroshima Nagasaki Exhibit at Landmark Center, St. Paul Aug 23, 2015

Nuclear weapons, from display at Hiroshima Nagasaki Exhibit at Landmark Center, St. Paul Aug 23, 2015


Same source as above, Aug. 23, 2015

Same source as above, Aug. 23, 2015


Cuba? Very important too. Here’s what I wrote to President Obama and my Senators and Congresswoman about the relationship between Iran, Cuba and ourselves….
Sens Klobuchar et al re Iran and Cuba

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