I was struck by the juxtaposition of Robert K. Adair's letter "Defending One's Country Is Moral, Too" (Physics Today, September 2001, page 78) just following the obituaries section. All of the distinguished scientists who are memorialized there found "a moral dimension . . . in contributing to the defense of their country."
Ugo Fano's obituary says of him, "World War II intervened, so he began work on ballistics at the US Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground." Of Minoru Oda, it is said that "in 1944, he was recruited to the Japan Naval Research Laboratory's Shimada branch." Harry Brumberger "served in the US Army in the ski troops." And "during World War II, Arnold [Boris Arons] was a group leader in the Underwater Explosion Research Laboratory at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution."
A society is at its greatest peril when its members do not feel they have the moral obligation to defend the very society that nurtures them.
Rarely does a scientist speak out as a citizen with the moral force that animated Robert K. Adair's low-key letter (Physics Today, September 2001, page 78) on the subject of his military service in World War II. I wonder how many men who had occupational deferments gave them up as Adair did to volunteer for military service in that war. Surely it was that kind of moral commitment, as much as our armaments, that defeated Adolf Hitler and the threat he represented to all that is best in modern civilization.
Perhaps not all our wars have been waged for ends as incontestably admirable as World War II, but those who take a pacifist stance today should read Adair's letter, review the history of that war, and rethink their position.
It is simply an ugly, continuing fact of life that there are people in the world who do evil, vicious things. There are likely to be times in the lives of all of us when we must be willing to deal with such people with all the force at our command, as citizens in our private lives, and to avoid combat is to surrender to evil.
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