Ted Studebaker: I heard the other day, and I believe that it’s true that the war is not going to be won over here. It’s going to be won by American—perhaps public—opinion and what a lot of people think. It’s a difficult situation, and I’ve had to adjust my views to what’s going on over here. But one thing I sure haven’t changed in my view and that is on my idea of pacifism and conscientious objection. This remains stronger than ever and even more so since I’ve been here—that you don’t influence people and win friends and win the hearts and minds of people by showing brute force and military might. I don’t care who you’re fighting in the world or how small or large or whether it’s one person in relationship or whether it’s whole nations involved. Defensiveness—offensiveness—just doesn’t in the long run win out.

Ted: But, uh, just being able to get the heck out of your own country and, uh, see what’s going on in the world, and then compare the— compare the notes. And I don’t think you could ever do this by being an American soldier over here, for the most part, because they’re only here for a one-year stay…. They’re here mostly, for the most part, to get out— get out as fast as they can and get back home. And leave the ‘hell hole’ over here. They never learn the Vietnamese language, they’re never even permitted too much contact with the Vietnamese…

[screen fades to a television broadcast]
ABC News broadcaster: Ted Studebaker of West Milton Ohio was a young man who told his draft board he could not conscientiously accept military service, but that he was perfectly willing to go to Vietnam. ABC’s Jim Kincaid reports on what happened to him.

[musical tune, and Ted’s voice singing]:🎶 “But he’s five-foot-two and six-foot-four. He fights with missiles and his fears… But he’s all of thirty-one, but only seventeen, but he’s been a soldier for a thousand years… ” 🎶

Jim Kincaid: When Studebaker went to war he took no weapons. He took instead a guitar, a small tape recorder, but most important a dedication to the idea that more can be accomplished with tools than with guns. Ted Studebaker’s army was the Vietnam Christian Service. His assignment: to help the mountain people of the village of Di Linh. He worked here for two years, and planned to stay a third. Here he fell in love with Pakdy, a gentle Chinese girl from Hong Kong — like him a volunteer. Here they married.

About a week later on April 26th, the Viet Cong unit attack Di Linh. The attack opened with a mortar barrage, and later the invaders entered the house and shot Ted Studebaker to death. The Viet Cong obviously considered him an enemy — after all, he was an American. But they couldn’t really have known Ted Studebaker.

A few days later, Ted Studebaker’s widow journeyed to his home near West Milton, Ohio, there to join his family and to plan a memorial at the family’s church. A memorial that would be, in Pastor Phillip Bradley’s words, “a celebration of the life of Ted Studebaker.”

Pastor Phillip: “Ted saw both the agony and the ecstasy of life. Both the grandeur and the misery of man. He said yes to his world even though, he wrote, ‘I have never heard of a president pinning a Medal of Honor on a pacifist. These are the sacred glories reserved for those who can kill, maim, capture or destroy the most. And the more human lives involved the more glorious the award seems to be. What a contradiction of values. How can a Great Society be so inconsistent and incoherent?'”

[Music to the song ‘Blowing in the Wind’ plays, with Ted’s voice singing]: 🎶 “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?” [music fades to background.] 🎶

Jim Kincaid: Ted Studebaker loved this song and sent a recording to his family. His wishes concerning his final resting place were never clearly stated, but his mother feels she knows the proper way.

Ted’s mother: “He especially liked this view out here, under the two willow trees, and we feel that this spot on the farm is so much a part of what Ted loved here. And we think this would be a very appropriate place to scatter his ashes. The ashes being scattered… some would remain on the farm, and the rest will be — as his wife remarked — ‘blowing in the wind.’

Jim Kincaid: Ted Studebaker was a man who believed peace was possible. He had his roots in the land, and it occurred to him that a land that needed him was a tortured land far away from his farm in Ohio. He went there willingly. Now he has come home.

[Music grows louder, with Ted’s voice singing] “The answer is blowin’ in the wind…” 🎶[music fades.]

ABC News broadcaster: We’ll be back with more news in a moment.

Linda Post: Once we heard that he was to be married over there in Vietnam, I thought it would be nice if we all got together and helped Mother and Dad to be able to make the trip. His response was sort of a “Thank you, Lin, but no thanks. It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Gary Studebaker: So after he got done serving two years in Vietnam, he got married, and then he and his wife decided to go on for a third year, and of course, he was killed six days after that.

Doug Studebaker: He was killed point blank. A volley of shots ended his life. Those volley of shots reeled him backwards into a closet. On that closet door was a poster that Ted had seen fit to put up there, and it was “What if they gave a war, and nobody came?”

Lowell Studebaker: The Stars and Stripes, which of course was a military publication, made some extremely complimentary and kind remarks about Ted and his work that they were familiar with.

Gary: When he got killed then all of a sudden we read and learn more about him, and it leads us to believe that here is a brother who was . . . lived the kind of life that . . . I want to live that kind of life. I want to be that brazen. Lord, give me the power to do that.

Ron Studebaker: Ted’s life, the example of his short life, was something that helped strengthen our own family and our own relationships as a family.

Mary Ann Cornell: When Ted died, we siblings all gathered at the farm where we grew up, and we were a week together before his body came back to us. I think that really kind of made us more aware, certainly made us more aware, of what Ted believed and how he really was able to follow his beliefs.

Lowell: It certainly made a difference in my life because I had completed military service by the time Ted was 10 years old. I wasn’t familiar with his life other than I knew he was an athlete following in the tracks of all the rest of us. So it made a huge impression on me what happened to Ted—an indelible impression.

Mary Ann: Peace is certainly not for wimps. He had the strength to stand up and listen to other people but also to let them hear what his views were.

Gary: And when people would write him letters, he’d say, “You know, if you really want to do something for me, do whatever you can to work for peace in nonviolent ways,” because he was seeing things that caused him to say that.

Doug: I think it does take an additional effort to be a pacifist and to follow peace. Ted had detractors. Many people would see him as unpatriotic. And he got a scathing review about his un-Americanism. How can he call himself a Christian or a God-fearing person when he speaks about . . . that his country is in the wrong in this war? Of course, Ted felt that all war was wrong. But what was remarkable, he responded and penned his response to that attack on him from this gentleman in his hometown area, but he did it with such compassion, which was really very remarkable and within hours of him being killed . . . point blank by an individual . . . part of the war. He came up and read this letter to the nurse, a Church World Service worker in the compound where he was. I found that remarkable. One of the last things that he did in his life was write a very compassionate letter, and further just underscoring his commitment to peace, and to dealing peacefully even with those who don’t see things quite the way we see them.

Doug Studebaker: Sort of a compelling thing that we learned when we traveled to Vietnam, Gary and I, was that there was a perception of Americans to this day, 41, 40, 50 years later, from the war, and two separate people remarkably said to us, separately, “We didn’t know that Americans had such strong family ties.” And it made me think, back in 1970—69, 70, as we were escalating the Vietnam War, I distinctly remember a general stating that these people don’t have feelings like we do. The reporter stopped the camera and asked this general, “Wait a minute; you don’t mean to say that.” And he said, “No, that stands. These people don’t value life the way that we do.” I think it’s human nature just to not understand other people, people that are different, and I think Ted felt that one of the ways that you really show compassion and learn yourself, culturally are enriched and so forth, is by venturing out, and he did that.

Gary Studebaker: We met five people who knew Ted. One was “a little boy about 15 years old,” he said, “when Ted was in our village.” He said, “You know,” he said, “Ted used to . . . he knew that my parents needed money, and Ted just gave us some money one time and said nothing about it.” He’s telling us this 41 years later. And we just felt this was an unusual experience Ted is giving us to see the kinds of things that he did in Vietnam.

Each of the siblings sent Doug and I seeds. We sat down with our host, Mr. Giau in Di Linh, and he said, “Sure, we can help you disburse those seeds.” So we gave them to Mr. Giau, our host, and he and one of Ted’s friends, they scattered the seeds for us.

Our family has some tradition here of planting a tree when a loved one dies. So we went over with that thought: Well, maybe we can plant a tree after we get there. And we were successful at . . . our host in Di Linh where Ted worked, took us to a nursery, and asked us to pick out a tree, and we bought a tree while we were there. And so he said, “You know what, you can plant that on my property.” And that’s precisely where we put that tree in honor of Ted. We feel that was an answer to prayer that we were able to get that tree in his honor, which is still there in Di Linh to our knowledge, and scatter some seeds as a way to show our love for Ted and the kinds of things he did.

Mary Ann Cornell: I think Ted’s life has really has affected me in ways that . . . just dealing with things in everyday life. I think of him frequently. How would his response be? One of the members of our church in West Milton has written a children’s book about Ted. That’s been many years ago, but we still have responses occasionally from people who say, “Tell me about your brother.”

Ron Studebaker: Out front, I think it’s a story of courage, and we all have had responses, read letters, and heard from people who never had any inking of who Ted was, but read his story of what happened in his short life. And that’s terribly awe-inspiring to somebody, especially somebody who’s not sure where they’re headed and where they want to go with their life.

Lowell Studebaker: I think Ted would say, “Live a good life. Do what you believe in. Do it well. Treat people kindly. Do the right thing.”

Ron: I think it is important to do what your conscience dictates.

Linda Post: I think we all have God-given talents. And after seeing Ted’s life, we need to use them. We need to find them and use them.

Gary: Find your strength. Find the things you think you can do, and see if you can make a contribution to making this a better world.

Ron: Even amongst evil there is always a way to find good. There is always a way to bring out the best and to bring out the positives and not dwell on the negatives.

Gary: I don’t think Ted would want us to remember him as a hero. I think he would want us to find what it is you can do in this life.

Lowell: If there were heroes in peace, Ted would be a hero just like once in awhile they single out a soldier as a hero. But he wouldn’t want to be . . . he wouldn’t want to be considered for that role, nor do I think we consider him for that role. I’m proud of the guy for what he did and the stand he took and the people he helped. I’m happy to talk about Ted and share his story.

Gary: People are going to come to this Dayton Peace Museum and not only learn about Ted but other people who work for peace and justice. It’s going to be a wonderful—and for many people a life-changing—experience when they learn about these people.

Lowell: I always felt Ted took the road less traveled, but it was the road that had an answer to what was in his heart.

Nancy Smith: Our perception of peace that, you know, is more embedded in that thought process and helps us in our own lives. And quietly, maybe quietly, it influences other people around us.