Call it quixotic. Or call it crazy.
     June 1969: In Montreal, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released their anthem, "Give Peace A Chance." In Moscow, an international Communist conference wrangled. In Chicago, control of the Students for A Democratic Society was seized by the violent Weatherman faction. In Manhattan, what became known as the Stonewall riots marked the rise of the gay rights movement. In Vietnam, more than 500 US soldiers were killed in the ongoing War.
     And on June 29, a committee of Quakers arrived in Fayetteville, North Carolina. These earnest liberals from the cultivated campus community of Chapel Hill were resolved to bring peace to America’s quintessential warrior’s town.
     Fayetteville was home to Fort Bragg, one of the largest Army bases in the US In that summer of 1969, Fort Bragg was busy putting thousands of draftees through simulated combat exercises. These raw troops were then shipped off to Vietnam to face the real thing.
     Besides the trainees learning the basics of weapons and tactics, deeper in the post’s woods hundreds of Green Berets were preparing for more sophisticated and deadly secret missions behind enemy lines.
     On the map, it was a journey of only eighty-plus miles. Yet culturally, Fayetteville was light years from Chapel Hill. Plus the invading Quakers were outnumbered there by a factor of thousands to one.
     Nevertheless, here they came, and soon they had established their beachhead, calling it Quaker House.
     Forty years later, Fort Bragg was still going strong. In 2008 it dominated the Fayetteville economy and culture more than ever, and was deeply involved in two overt wars, and numerous more secret conflicts. Peace, if it had ever come here, was only the briefest visitor. Military strategists now spoke casually of being in the early phases of what they called "The Long War."
     Yet Quaker House was still here too, despite the odds and other difficulties, and notwithstanding the manifest failure to achieve its overall goal. Also like the post, Quaker House was busier than ever in its fortieth year, and had likewise been preparing for another generation or more of service.
     It’s not really remarkable that Fort Bragg is still active; since 1969, the American "military industrial complex" of which it is a key cog has grown steadily, war or no.
     The perseverance of Quaker House is another matter. When it began, as we shall see, it was part of a nationwide organizing upsurge that produced dozens of antiwar projects near military bases. But of these, there was in 2008 only one left, the one that is the subject of this book.
     What accounts for the survival of Quaker House? What has it accomplished? Have its founders and staff learned anything that could benefit others who are interested in peace work, or a close-in but critical look at military culture?
     These are big questions. Let’s sneak up on them, like a clandestine Green Beret team, beginning with a tale about flipping the papers . . . .