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20 Brothersin Conscience W E MET OUR FIRST YEAR at Virginia on the soccer field during phys ed. I teased Jackson Lears about his "cat-like movements" and we soon became fast friends. We had many classes together over the next four years, including Harbaugh's History of the United States in the 20th Century. We shared all-nighters of study, had intense talks about matters profound, made each other convulse with laughter, grew to question the war, despite being in ROTC. And when we each submitted applications for discharge as conscientious objectors, some of our strongest support came from a best friend first encountered on that soccer field behind Memorial Gym. We have met again in many places since college, in San Diego, Boston, Columbia, Missouri, and Washington, D.C. But in all those reunions, for some strange reason, we have never discussed our C.O. stands. Tonight is our chance to change that, this time in lambertville , New Jersey. Once the Delaware and Raritan Canal brought the industrial revolution to this town on the banks of the Delaware River, just across from Pennsylvania. Now, tourists are the trade, drawn by Lambertville's collection of historic buildings, its antique shops, restaurants, slow-paced streets, the aura of the past. I join the Lears' family for dinner in Lambertville's only Thai restaurant, the kind of small ethnic eatery they always find wherever they live. Jackson is ever-Jackson, my least-changed old friend, his sandy hair always worn short, his beard well-trimmed, that open, gentle face with the prominent nose. He is intent, proud, resoundingly earnest and scholarly, a serious-minded man. After the Navy, 223 224 RECONCILlAnON ROAD he had gone on to a distinguished career in academia, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a master's from Chapel Hill, a doctorate from Yale. His dissertation on antimodernism in late nineteenth~century America had been published as No Place of Grace, and became a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is now a visiting professor at Princeton. This former member of the U.Va. Student Council-who urged fellow students that "the time is ripe for revolution" in the spring of 1969-still displays his leftist beliefs on bumper stickers plastered on his Toyota station wagon. Karen Parker Lears, Jackson's wife since college days, is a dark~ haired woman with a striking inner beauty and considerable talent as a visual artist. She is an earth mother in the best sense, not the cliche, grounded, spiritual, giving, a fine compatriot for Jackson and often the perfect foil, playing on the droll sense of humor that his seriousness sometimes obscures. Their two daughters-Rachel, twelve, and Adin, seven-are seated at the table with us. They are energetic talkers, free~spirited accomplices, pals. The Thai food is pleasingly spicy this chill evening and the table conversation is pleasantly nostalgic, at least at first. But talk of our times together at Virginia soon gives way to talk of our time afterward, when Jackson went into the Navy and I went into the Army. Karen, who may have been a pacifist long before we were, recalls what women often endured because of the men they loved and the war. She had hated the Navy and everything about being a "Navy officer's wife." She had hated the inequities of the service, the differences enforced by rank, even during the application process for discharge as a conscientious objector. "I was painfully aware of the difference between Jackson, an officer, and an enlisted guy who was going through the same thing," Karen says. "We knew we had the law on our side, and had a lot of personal resources. And we were very lucky for all the support we had, support from me, support from his family, from my family." Karen's comment brings it all back, what it had been like trying to become a e.O. in the military, the nights of fitful sleep, the tormenting uncertainties, alternate scenarios, endless discussions with our spouses. And how thankful we men were that someone was willing to share that with us, thankful and yet guilty as well. "I had long conversations with Karen," Jackson says. "I'm sure I BROTHERS IN CONSCIENCE 225 drove her crazy. I told her how desperate I was, how I had to get out of this thing. She was influential." "I don't think I could have done it without my wife back then," I add...

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