Parson Sun Parson, Kansas 14 May 1998

Colleen Surridge
Parson Sun

Rudy Stolfer knows the effects of war. He lived through the time of the Cold War and the Korean War and served in the U. S Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. War is always a concern, but over the years, Stolfer said, the weapons of war have become more worrisome as more nations build nuclear weapons. So, he's doing what he can to "wage peace."

Stolfer arrived in Parson Wednesday afternoon pulling a small cardboard coffin on wheels. Inside was his essentials outside were his message, "Victims of War". The 48-year-old man Pennsylvanian says he is on a 420-day 6,000 mile ''walk for world peace,"

He began the walk in Oregon July 13, 1997, and will end it in Washington, D.C. Labor Day.

His inspiration, he said comes from not only his desire for world peace, but from a woman called the "Peace Pilgrim." who walked for peace off and on from 1953 to 1981. She set out to walk 25,000 miles for world peace, but after she completed that, she continued to walk. She was on her seventh pilgrimage when she was killed in a automobile accident," he said.

"We've got to do something. There are many victims of wars anymore. The federal government is spending billions of dollars on weapons of war, but the wars in our own country, on poverty, drugs and starvation get all talk and very little money. He said. While $8.5 billion was spent on a war machine, 150 children starved very every minute. We're a big contributor to that.

We the people are supposed to be the government. If those we place in the positions to manage the government are not doing the things we as people desire them to do, then it is our right or duty to abolish said government and reorganize it. "This country was founded under the hospices of God's grace, yet where this country once helped smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union, children now have to smuggle them into their own schools." "In a country where the majority rules one person managed to get prayer thrown out of schools I'd say that says something about apathy in this country." Stolfer said that it does teach a lesson though, "One person can make a difference. "

If everyone tried making a difference a more far-reaching difference could be made, he said. While people readily express their opinions to each other he said the need to learn to express them to those people that can make a difference know everyone can't do what I'm doing, but people can pick up a pen. And paper and write or call or lobby their Legislature to end war. "The time to end war is now. I just read in the paper about India testing nuclear weapons." " It's frightening."

"If the children don't know how to play with the toys, then take then away from them."