Rodney Lehman was interned during WW II in CPS Camp 21, Cascade Locks, OR, and CPS Camp 56, Waldport, OR.
"I kinda take the CO/Pacifist position pretty seriously. And so one of the things that I decided in life, and I figured this out early in school, is I wasn't going to teach school. And the reason, one of the reasons, there's a whole lot of reasons, I don't like to teach to begin with, but one of the reasons bears on the CO position. I could not see myself in a classroom starting off with the kids saluting the flag every morning. It's just one thing I couldn't do. I never sing the national anthem. And saluting the flag, I don't go to places where we salute the flag anymore. But you know, this comes from a conservative religious background where you know you've got to decide where is your loyalty. And does it really mean something to you? So many people just go along with everything. Well, that's how we get along in this life. But to me the thing about loyalty between the state and the church, or your religion, the draft and the CO issue, is because you make a choice. Are you going to take Caesar, salute the flag and all that stuff, and march in the army, or are you going to say no? And I decided I was going to say no. I try to live with this and cut it back as far as I can. You're compromising all the time with taxes and everything else, everything is compromised. But to me one of the things I make a stand about, privately, I was not going to teach kids in school that they had a loyalty to the government that was superior maybe to the loyalty to their God. Just wasn't in me to do that."
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