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The non fiction book, A Service Of Love In Wartime, can be downloaded from either Google Books or Open Library at no cost. For example you can find the book HERE. It is the story of the work of conscientious objectors in WWI. They were organized by the Quaker Church and accomplished a monumental amount of work during and after WWI. The book starts out a little slow with some of the political problems they ran into trying to establish with the government an alternative to the draft for CO's. By a quarter of the way into the book things start to really pick up. There are descriptions of the treatment CO's received in training camps prior to the alternative service getting set up and the struggles to work with in the system to remedy the situation. The officers in our armed services were sensitive to the issues but the drill sergeants were not in the loop. There were some pretty gruesome examples of how they tried to break the CO's convictions and convince them to fight. Eventually the alternative service was established and the Quakers, Mennonite, and Dunker draftees were off to Europe but in a different role. Still working within the shell fire, instead of firing back they were evacuating civilians and providing medical care and other services to the war displaced populations. The organization that was formed by the Quakers to meet this need in WWI later received the Nobel Peace Prize. I have never seen a movie or a mini series about this work in WWI and I have to wonder why. This book is a story to be told and a movie or mini series would be a wonderful venue to educate the public about this little known corner of WWI. Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to move information and enjoy the video that follows. And then read on below the video to see how I came to read this book. It is very different than most books I would select.
Any one who has read my blog much knows that I have an interest in history and that historical novels are my genre. They may also know that I have a family history hobby and spend a lot of time researching my ancestors. What they may not know is that I am Diest. I respect people's religious affiliations but am not involved in a religious social group. So the book in this blog is not one that would normally jump off the shelf at me. But I have gotten involved in a project as a volunteer that caused me to read this particular book. I will also be reading more non fiction books about WWI in the next year. This is because, due to my genealogy contacts, I was asked to volunteer and join in a project that the county I was born in is planning for Armistice Day 2018. This will be the 100 year anniversary of the ending of WWI. It is unfortunate that our WWI Vets have not been as celebrated as some of our other veterans of war. The committee I am working with is trying to find out what they can about the WWI veterans from the county. This task is made more difficult due to a fire the NARA center in St Louis had that housed the records for WWI personal. While I hate when our service men and women are put in harms way, I do feel strongly that when they are they should be thanked and be remembered for their service. Since I have some experience in finding out about "dead people" with my genealogy hobby, I was asked to pitch in. I have been given the task of finding out about the Red Cross Nurses from the county I was born in. Once in Europe the Quaker group was joined with both the British Quakers and both theBritish and the American Red Cross. And one of our county's gals is on the list in the back of this book A Service Of Love In War Time. Therefore, along with a lot of other WWI and Red Cross Information, I read this book. I enjoyed the book very much and recommend it to others. And as I indicated I wish there was a movie about the information in it. But back to the WWI Centennial Project, there is a national push to have functions and memorials around the country for Armistice Day 2018. There is a web page to post memorials that can be found HERE along with the adjacent site that is full of information for those that want to get involved with WWI commemorative programming. The web page that the county I am involved working with can be found HERE. So far I have been chasing down four different Red Cross Nurses and I have not yet determined where my Quaker lady served at in Europe. I am sure more names will surface as the research continues. I do not know if they will chose to use the information I am finding but I am having a ball finding it. Please follow the two links in this paragraph for more information and enjoy the video that follows. I hope others will get involved in a WWI 2018 Armistice Day project at the county, state, or national level.
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