Sarah Butzin and Peter Butzin

[00:02] SARAH BUTZIN: I'm Sally Butzin also known as Sarah Butzin I'm 76 years old. Today is November 28, 2021, two days after Thanksgiving. We're in Tallahassee, Florida, and I'm here with my husband, Peter.

[00:21] PETER BUTZIN: And I am Peter Butzin I am 77 years old, and it is the 28th of November, 2021. We're in Tallahassee, Florida, and I am being interviewed by my wife of 52 years, Sally. I call her Sally, but Butzin

[00:42] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, Peter, I wanted to come to talk about when we first met, and I was inspired by a recent movie that I watched. It was streaming, called the Boys who Said no. And it was about the men back then, boys who resisted the draft and protested against the Vietnam War. I was drawn to this by a message from Joan Baez, who I was a huge Joan Baez fan back in my college days in the 1960s. And her husband, David Harris, was one of the protesters, and he was featured in this film. And he actually went to prison as a draft resister. And our life started together because you were a draft resistor. So my first question is, when did you start to be opposed to the Vietnam War? What was the spark that got you thinking about that?

[01:58] PETER BUTZIN: Oh, my goodness. I would. Well, I should give some background. So I grew up in a staunchly Republican household. All my relatives were Republican. And then I went to Carleton College, which introduced me to a whole nother world. And I would have become seriously opposed to the war in Vietnam when I took a course at Carleton in Asian history. And that would have been probably my sophomore year. And that really woke me up to the fact that the history that I had known growing up in Ripon, Wisconsin, was very different from what I was exposed to as a college sophomore.

[02:41] SARAH BUTZIN: And for me, what I remember, the spark for me was I was at DePauw University, and we had a lecture series, the McGee McGovern. They were two senators. One was in favor of the Vietnam War and one was opposed. McGovern was opposed. And I went to that lecture, and that's when I started to realized that this was just not right. So after you became aware that you were against the war, then what was the next step in your journey to be a draft resistor?

[03:23] PETER BUTZIN: Well, I became a draft resistor probably as the thought of being drafted became imminent. Now, at that time, all those males in college and in graduate school had draft exemptions, educational draft exemptions. And that worked for me through my first couple of years in graduate school. I'm getting ahead of myself. A little bit. But I would say that we had our first protests at Carleton College, beginning probably in my junior year, which would have been 19. 1966. Thank you. 1966. And I remember parading through the streets of Northfield, Minnesota, the home of cows, colleges and contentment, little town with the local population kind of glaring at us, all of us who were protesting, but my roommates and I and my friends, we were sure that we were right to protest. And it made me very politically aware. I voted for the first time when I was 21, which would have been about when I was a junior and I was starting to become so active against the war in Vietnam. I remember that I even made the mistake, fortunately I was never called on this, of bribing my conservative congressman from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. I said, if you will oppose the war, I will come and work for you for free for a year. At the time, I didn't know that would be illegal to even make that proposal, but I was so against the war in Vietnam that I felt energized to act.

[05:19] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, you know, for some of the younger people that may be listening to this someday, go back and just talk about the draft, because that's something that the young people today don't even appreciate. So talk about, how did that work?

[05:35] PETER BUTZIN: So at the time, eligible males had to register for the draft. They still do, actually, even though we haven't had a draft Since, I think, 19, I don't know, 73 or 74. But in a way, I came out in favor of the draft simply because I felt that you could only have a war if it was supported by its citizens. And one way to ensure that citizens supported a war was to ensure that they would be comfortable with their children going to war to fight for some good cause. But it was very apparent during the war in Vietnam that those of draft eligible age, at least many of us were opposed to the war in Vietnam, and therefore, at the time, opposed to the draft. But subsequently, of course, the draft is no longer. And as a result, I think we've gotten into a lot of needless wars recklessly because everybody assumes, well, that's some other family going to war, that's some other families, young children being slaughtered in war. That doesn't affect me personally. And so for that reason, and again, I'm getting ahead of myself, I think probably we need to bring back the draft so that we have a more conscientious decision with regard to whether a war is worth it.

[06:56] SARAH BUTZIN: Okay, well, again, I want you to be more granular Talk about the draft number you had. Everybody had a number. And talk about how that worked. And it was very scary. Of course, it was just men at that time. Women didn't have to be drafted. Tell us about the numbering system.

[07:13] PETER BUTZIN: So when I was in graduate school, my first year at Washington University in St. Louis, they were running out of draft eligible males who did not go to college, who did not have the draft deferment. So I remember corresponding with the Fond du Lac draft Selective Service Committee. The head of that said, we're going to get you one way or another, you're going to be drafted. And this was when they imposed the.

[07:43] SARAH BUTZIN: Lottery and talk about like, everybody had a number.

[07:49] PETER BUTZIN: Everybody had a number. Although that was a little bit later for me. I wasn't really affected by that as people about two years, three years younger than. But the bottom line was that they had a lottery. And the lottery was based on your birthdate. And if you had, you could end up having the lottery number one, which meant you were sure to be drafted, or a lottery number of 365, which means. Meant that you were very unlikely to be drafted. I can't even remember what my lottery number was because it was later. I had already avoided the draft. And I'm sure you're going to ask me some questions about how I did that.

[08:34] SARAH BUTZIN: But again, being just specific because I think a lot of people don't even understand when you say the lottery. Did they like, put all the numbers in a bin and roll?

[08:43] PETER BUTZIN: Exactly.

[08:44] SARAH BUTZIN: And they pulled out a number.

[08:45] PETER BUTZIN: It was like powerballs, like 365 balls for a day of the year.

[08:53] SARAH BUTZIN: And did they do that every year? There was an annual draft or do you remember?

[08:56] PETER BUTZIN: I think it was annual, yeah.

[08:58] SARAH BUTZIN: So what was your number?

[09:00] PETER BUTZIN: I can't remember because by that time it was obvious I was going to get out of the draft.

[09:05] SARAH BUTZIN: Okay, but you, at the time, you were concerned, apparently that your number was pretty low, that you had a pretty good chance of being drafted, right?

[09:14] PETER BUTZIN: Yes, if I hadn't followed some other protocols.

[09:17] SARAH BUTZIN: Okay, so. And some of our friends did get drafted. And in fact, one of my very best, dearest friends was killed in Vietnam. So. And you had friends that were drafted, but you chose a different route. So what did, what did you decide? Because you definitely weren't going to serve. So what did you do?

[09:45] PETER BUTZIN: I had three choices. All of us had three choices, maybe four. I mean, one wasn't even an option for me. One was, you're drafted, you go, you serve. The other option was to. Was to flee to Canada. That was risky because at the time there was no guarantee you'd ever be able to come back. And I was unwilling to take that route simply because I didn't want to face missing my family for the rest of my life. The other option was to go to jail, and I had friends who literally went to jail. The other option for some people was to stay in school as long as they had that draft exemption. And we did that for as long as we could. But for me, I learned that there was another option. And that option was to come under the care of a recognized religious denomination, go to seminary and receive what was called a 4D exemption from the military. And it was for conscientious objection. And I chose that route. I went to Eden Theological Seminary in my second year of postgraduate education. I was a full time doctoral student at Washington University studying history. And at the same time I was a full time seminarian at Eden Theological Seminary. Now, it would sound that this would all sound very, you know, I was just trying to avoid the draft, but it wasn't quite that sound in that I had a dear friend, colleague, mentor at Carleton College who is the assistant chaplain. His name was Joel Tibbets. And Joel Tibbets always was trying to recruit me to become a minister. And he succeeded in that for two years. I think maybe it was even three years at Carrollton. There were five of us who performed the ministerial functions at the Zumbroda Congregational Church. And it was a church that simply couldn't afford a full time minister. So they arranged through Joel Tibbets to have five of us rotate the responsibilities of minister, including pastoral care, preaching, all the kinds of things that ministers do. And I did that for three years. And when I went to Washington University, I remember Joel Tibbett saying, now I want you to stay still consider going to seminary, because I think you'd make an outstanding minister in the Congregational Church. And he said, by the way, there's a great seminary in St. Louis called Eden Theological Seminary. I hadn't heard of it, but it was a seminary of the Evangelical Reformed Church, which was part of the United Church of Christ. And sure enough, I always have said, the Lord's speaks in mysterious ways. Because in my first year when my draft board was saying, we are going to draft you, and came so close that they sent me to the physical down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is got another horrible experience. But I remember talking to the clerk of the Selective Service Board in Fond du Lac county, and I said, you can't get me because I am now under the care of the United Church of Christ Florida Conference. And I'm going to become a Protestant minister.

[13:26] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, there you go. As you say, the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. Well, just again, I want to get a little more granular for experiences that, like, I'm thinking of our grandchildren and children that never had. But you talked about ways to get out of the one that you mentioned about the physical. Because I remember you telling me stories about some of your friends that would go on these wacko diets so they wouldn't be able to pass the physical.

[13:55] PETER BUTZIN: We all had.

[13:56] SARAH BUTZIN: So there were a lot of different ways of getting around it, weren't there?

[14:00] PETER BUTZIN: I remember one of my friends who was always skinny, literally almost starved himself to death so that he'd come under the. The weight restriction that was required in order to be drafted. And he was successful by using that tactic, incidentally, it was a very. It was hard on him and hard on his health. I mean, I think he had. He weighed like 90 pounds or something like that. He was 6ft tall. So that was his story. And then I had another friend who was actually in St. Louis. He was teaching at a high school. He hated teaching. He wasn't prepared to be a teacher, but yet he taught. He hated it. But there was an exemption for young men who would be willing to teach in inner city schools where nobody else would teach. And. Oh, I know. I had another friend. This was interesting. So at the time, the military would not draft homosexuals. And I had a friend who was not really a homosexual. In fact, he wasn't a homosexual, but he was a psychology major. And so he used a homosexual exemption story. He said, well, everybody is a little bit homosexual. And when he was interviewed by the army recruiters or whatever, that was enough to get him exempted from the military. They thought he was some kind of terrible homosexual, but he got out of it. So we all had our ways.

[15:31] SARAH BUTZIN: So I think let's move on. So you now have gotten your exemption, you're in seminary, and then that leads us to coming to Chicago. And that was certainly a momentous, best trip I ever took. So talk about, why did you come to Chicago? First of all, what was your main reason for coming?

[15:56] PETER BUTZIN: Okay, my main reason for coming to Chicago.

[15:59] SARAH BUTZIN: This was in 1968. 68.

[16:00] PETER BUTZIN: In the summer of 68. It was probably June, I would say. I remember it was gorgeous. There was a gorgeous park overlooking Lake Michigan where. Well, I'm getting ahead of my story again. Anyway, so the reason for my going to Chicago is because I wanted to be trained as a draft counselor so that I could use all of my collected wisdom and experience to help others avoid the draft. And at the time, the American Friends Service Committee, which is the service arm of the Quakers, the American Friends, had a draft counseling course. But you had to go to Chicago and that was the nearest city to Ripon, Wisconsin. You had to go to Chicago to take the, this class that basically certified you as a, as a draft counselor. And I went to the class. Actually, it was more of an interview because they discovered that I knew more than the teachers about how to avoid the draft. But it was still, it was a wonderful, wonderful trip. I went down there with a close high school friend and we decided to just kind of make it a weekend, weekend out of it. And of course at the time we had no money. And so we had two friends from high school girlfriends, not romantic girlfriends, but just friends that happened to be female from Ripon, who were staying at an apartment on the near north side in Chicago. And so we called them up and said, hey, you know, we want to come down for the weekend. Peter's got to do this draft counseling thing and we don't have any money. Can we crash at your place? They said, sure, come on down. So we went down to Chicago. And I distinctly remember when one of these friends opened the door and I stared straight ahead and I saw this lovely young woman. She was barefooted, she was reading the newspaper. She didn't even, she hardly bothered to say hi. She certainly didn't stay stand up or anything. But she said, hi, I'm Sally. And I said, well, I'm Peter. And the rest was history.

[18:12] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, as it turned out, I was also very opposed to the Vietnam War and was doing a lot of protesting. And I remember, of course, I was attracted to the fact that you were there for doing the draft counseling, learning about that.

[18:34] PETER BUTZIN: And if I could interrupt, I was attracted when I found out that that evening you were going to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert in support of Eugene McCarthy for president. And of course Eugene McCarthy was the great anti war president of the time. So I thought to myself, this is my kind of woman.

[18:53] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, it turns out that we really hit it off. I went out on a date and I ditched him pretty early.

[19:02] PETER BUTZIN: That was a great sign because when she came home at 9 o'clock from that date, I thought, whoa, I could have a chance here.

[19:10] SARAH BUTZIN: So anyway, we spent a lot of time talking about our interests in the protests and whatnot. We fell in love.

[19:24] PETER BUTZIN: For me, it was love at first sight.

[19:26] SARAH BUTZIN: Me, too. So, anyway, we spent a lot of time. I remember walking down to the lake. And then, of course, our big event was the party up on the Roof.

[19:39] PETER BUTZIN: Up on the Roof, Yep.

[19:40] SARAH BUTZIN: And we still loved the James Taylor up on the Roof.

[19:46] PETER BUTZIN: James Taylor song, Up on the Roof.

[19:48] SARAH BUTZIN: Yeah.

[19:49] PETER BUTZIN: And then the next day, we went and walked along that park along Lake Michigan. I remember it was a gorgeous day. And good gracious, the hours went by as though they were minutes. I ended up. It was probably. I went home on Monday. I told my mother that I think that I'd found the love of my life. And you met her and my family shortly thereafter. You came up to Ripon. I should go back about a year, though, and explain that. In my first year at Washington University, I spent too much time opposing the war in Vietnam and not enough time at my studies. I went to Lincoln, Nebraska, to do canvassing for Eugene McCarthy. I went to other states that had primaries trying to get people to vote for Eugene McCarthy. Many times we were thrown off the porches of people they were calling us Communists because we opposed the war in Vietnam. And at that time, I've got to say, you just didn't oppose a war that your government supported. It just wasn't a patriotic thing to do. And I remember I was so happy the next year to be at Eden Seminary, where we could have a boycott, a class boycott that was supported by the administration and professors, where we would spend the day going out into the community trying to encourage citizens to oppose the war in Vietnam.

[21:27] SARAH BUTZIN: Yeah. So the other. The next thing I was going to ask about, this kind of came later. We weren't married yet. But do you remember when we went down to Chicago to the National Democratic Convention? Now, that was another very historic moment in the Vietnam era because President Johnson, he had decided not to run because of all the opposition. And so at the Chicago convention, there was a mass protest. Young people were there staying at Grant Park. And since my parents lived in Chicago, we didn't have to go down there, but we went down on the train. So talk about a little bit of our experience at the Democratic National Convention. That was quite amazing.

[22:21] PETER BUTZIN: Yeah, we actually went down to the corner of Michigan and Balboa, which is the epicenter of the demonstrations. Although I had long hair and I may have looked like a hippie, I didn't feel like a hippie. I wouldn't have described myself as a hippie. I was still conservative in many ways. I mean, conservative in that I was against violence. I was against property damage that was imposed by Some of the demonstrators. But it was a real eye opener for me. Mayor John Daley was the mayor at that time of Chicago. He was a terrible man, terrible corrupt public official. And I remember there was actually a police riot and we were close to being involved in that police riot in that I remember the police shoving us in the direction that they wanted us to go. Not a direction that we particularly wanted to go, but it was a. It was a fairly scary experience.

[23:29] SARAH BUTZIN: Yeah, I remember we were running and I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating, but I seem to remember they were tear gassing people and whatnot. They were, yes. So we were right there in the midst of it. And then we continued to be against the war after we got married, by the way, we got married six months after we met. In between, I had gone to Europe because I had promised a friend of mine that I would take this trip. So I remember we had a long distance romance by letters. And in fact, to show you your intensity of politics, at our 50th wedding anniversary, I found a letter. All the letters I saved and that you had written me and I had. The letters would come to the American Express office because this, of course, was way before cell phones or email or anything like that. So you would send a letter ahead and then when I would get to that city, I would go pick up the letter. So we all, we have two daughters and at our wedding, our anniversary celebration, we were all rolling on the floor because I read one of the letters that you had written to me and it started out saying how much you missed me and how you couldn't wait until I, we were together again and finally married. And then after about three sentences, you said, and can you believe what Nixon is doing? And you went on, most all the letter was about how horrible Nixon was and, you know, they had to end this war and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you finally got to the end and said, and I will hold you in my arms. But I figured that was very typical of our relationship. And as I think about it, I think the reason we've lasted 52 years is because we started out with shared values.

[25:42] PETER BUTZIN: Because we still have shared values.

[25:43] SARAH BUTZIN: We do. And when people ask, what do you see in him? Does he like to play golf? No. Does he like to dance? No. Does he like sports? No. So pretty much as far as our activities, we don't really. We aren't very compatible. But I think about friends who got married because we both love to dance, but that can only go so far. But I think that, you know, I've always respected your values, which are mine. And so why don't we go on now and talk? I'll ask you a little bit more about.

[26:26] PETER BUTZIN: I want to go back. One little aspect of our life, or my life at least, that you missed. This would have probably been in. Well, right around that time, I indicated that one of the choices was to go to Canada for a draft evasion.

[26:42] SARAH BUTZIN: Yeah, I remember. We seriously thought about that.

[26:44] PETER BUTZIN: We knew we weren't going to go to jail, but we were seriously considering going to Canada. And at the time, you could only emigrate to Canada if you had lined up a job in Canada. And because of my involvement with the YMCA in working at a YMCA camp near Flint, Michigan, I naturally turned to that as. That as an opportunity for a career. And so I contacted the London, Ontario ymca, and I actually went there. The head of the London, Ontario YMCA had a summer home in Michigan, which is nearby. And I went to his summer home to be interviewed. And I remember he was interviewing me for a position, I think, as a camp director. And it was clear to me he wanted to see if I got along well with kids. And he had one of his kids there. The kid and I were swimming and going out to the raft and whatever. And he offered me a job actually to go to London, Ontario. And we would have had a very different life in Canada. But again, I was unwilling to make that commitment because it would have meant that I faced never being able to go back to the United States again. Now, since then, I've got to say, Jimmy Carter came through, and he did allow people who had emigrated to Canada to come back and visit relatives in the States. But that was. We came fairly close.

[28:17] SARAH BUTZIN: And I was. I mean, I was also. We were both willing to do that if that was our last resort. But then the Lord spoke in mysterious ways and the seminary came through. So that was great. So we continued to evolve and still keep working for peace and justice. And I would say that looking back, as I said, I started this talking about this movie called the Boys who Said no. And it's clear that we were right. History has shown that the government lied to us. And even William McNamara, the architect of the war, admitted that they were not telling the truth. And there was no reason and justification for that war. And I think now as I buy clothes that say, made in Vietnam. And I think, isn't that ironic? We used to be killing these people, and now they're making our clothes. And I think they must have such a passion or what's the word for forgiveness? That they've been able to forgive us coming over there and invading their country and killing them for nothing.

[29:45] PETER BUTZIN: It took a long time for this nation to understand the mistake we had made in Vietnam. It first came out in the Pentagon Papers, and of course, I worked for Common Cause for a number of years. And one of the reasons John Gardner founded Common Cause was to oppose the war in Vietnam and its after effects. And I remember my mother, shortly before she died, I think it was in 2007, she finally said to me, she said, you know, you were right about the war in Vietnam. We should not have been there. And I remember that day, and I will always remember that day, because growing up in that staunchly Republican conservative household, my parents were ashamed that I was against the war in Vietnam. They always loved me. But still I knew that that shame lingered. And for my mother to finally admit we made a mistake by being in Vietnam was powerful to me.

[30:50] SARAH BUTZIN: And that's what this movie that I saw kicked my interest in this topic because it was unpatriotic. And the boys that said no, like you were looked down upon. And I think it was an act of bravery to oppose the war with the something wrong. And I think, you know, as I say, it's. I think history has proven that those of us that did stand up did make a difference, and I think that it's helped. And then I think we went on in our careers, you with Common Cause, and of course, we came to Tallahassee to. You were a minister. You became an ordained minister. Talk about your. We have. We're running out of time, but talk about your. What you did here in Tallahassee as far as continuing because the war was still going on when we came in 73, it was kind of winding down. So what did you do? You had some things you did at.

[32:04] PETER BUTZIN: Yeah, I was a campus minister, Florida State University, where we did all kinds of anti war and other kinds of liberal causes. And then, as I say, I went to work for Common Cause. And I did so because Common Cause was opposed to the war and opposed to all the aftermath of that war. And I continue to be a strong supporter of Common Cause to this day. And, you know, I would say over the years, our values have not changed. We continue to oppose unjust wars, and I think all the wars have been unjust since Vietnam. And we continue to be active politically. You're the head of the League of Women Voters here in Tallahassee, and I've been active in ethics reform in Tallahassee So, you know, our values continue to inspire our lives and hopefully we'll make a better world for our children and our grandchildren.

[32:58] SARAH BUTZIN: We hope and we haven't mentioned that we have two daughters who I think also share our values and they have raised, are raising really good kids. So we've been pretty lucky.

[33:16] PETER BUTZIN: One thing I'd like to add about. After you watched that movie, you said that you thought that the people who didn't, who refused to go to Vietnam were heroes. I never felt that I was a hero. I felt we all did what we had to do. I had my best friend from high school chose to go to the war in Vietnam. And we have close friends in our church who were in Vietnam. And I've always had the highest respect for them. They were pawns by our government. It wasn't their fault that they were there. But we all did what we had to do. Some of us were resisters, some of us supported the war, some people went to war, but all of us did what we felt we had to do.

[33:59] SARAH BUTZIN: I do think that we didn't do a good job of welcoming back those that did go to war.

[34:06] PETER BUTZIN: Absolutely.

[34:07] SARAH BUTZIN: I think they really got a lousy deal because we did make them feel that, you know, they had done something terrible when in fact they were just doing what they were told.

[34:18] PETER BUTZIN: Exactly.

[34:21] SARAH BUTZIN: And so the other thing I think that we've learned, the lessons learned from this whole period that we started together is the fact that it has been kind of disheartening to learn that you can't trust the government, starting with Watergate, which of course was what brought you to common cause.

[34:49] PETER BUTZIN: Right.

[34:50] SARAH BUTZIN: And that's a sad thing because I think we are patriotic and I do. You know, we love our country, but we see its flaws, but we try to correct it. Your career and then I've done in education, tried to make a difference.

[35:07] PETER BUTZIN: Now I have a question for you.

[35:09] SARAH BUTZIN: Yes.

[35:10] PETER BUTZIN: So I had a very, very good reason to do what I did because I had the imminent threat of the draft. But you were a woman. And at the time, and this is still true, women did not have to register for the selective service, although now they can serve in the military. But I've got to say I was very. What's the word? I was so happy that I met you because you were opposed to the war in Vietnam, that you took your conscience very seriously and yet you weren't threatened with the imminence of having to serve in the war. Why?

[35:54] SARAH BUTZIN: Well, I think again, the injustice of it. But I had friends, like I said my friend Cecil who was killed in the war. And we saw what was happening to our male friends and family. And we also. It was just something that wasn't right. And you would see the. I still can see that picture of those little children who had been napalmed. Remember that girl?

[36:21] PETER BUTZIN: Oh, absolutely.

[36:23] SARAH BUTZIN: It was just gut wrenching. And to think that our country was promoting that. It was just wrong. Are we done?