Paper Trail: Writings from the Front Line of Peace Action: Quaker House/Fort Bragg North Carolina - Paperback

by Chuck Fager (Author)

Drawing on a unique experience of front-line activism in the decade of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, this new collection of varied writings examines the strategy & tactics, successes & failures, history & future of faith-based work to end war, and to dismantle militarism and the repression it has spawned. Wide-ranging, creative and compelling. Includes reporting, analysis, commentary, book reviews, and several short stories, all related to the theme of work for peace in a time and milieu of warmaking.

Author Biography

Chuck Fager has been both a reporter and a peace activist, for more than forty years, beginning with work for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Alabama in 1965. In 2001 he brought his journalistic skills, movement experience, and religious conviction together in the post of Director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a peace project next door to Fort Bragg, one of the US Army's largest and most important bases, just as the military was gearing up for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. At Quaker House he counseled soldiers struggling with conscience when called to serve in a pre-emptive war of choice; planned many peace vigils and rallies; took on the war in many OpEd pieces published in the main newspaper in a military community; read and wrote many reviews and essays seeking to understand and illuminate the work of peacemaking in time of war; faced down fierce criticism of the project's active peace work; and even wrote several short stories based on these experiences. Chuck Fager retired from Quaker House in late 2012, and compiled the works in "Paper Trail" as a resource and record of this unique experience.