[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1047-E1050]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

TOM FOX, AN AMERICAN HERO

______

HON. JAMES P. MORAN

of virginia

in the house of representatives

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of
Mr. Tom Fox, an American hero who tirelessly gave his life to help
bring peace to Iraq but whose life was mercilessly taken from us at the
hands of killers on March 9, 2006. I am here to commemorate the life of
such a selfless and dedicated individual.
Mr. Fox was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and graduated with a
double degree in music performance and education from George Peabody
College for Teachers, which is now part of Vanderbilt University, in
Nashville. An accomplished musician, he joined the Marine Band and
spent twenty years playing his clarinet for them.
His passion gradually shifted from music toward peace activism and he
joined the Quaker Church. His views on non-violent social activism
strengthened his resolve to fight against the injustices in the world.
In 2002, he joined the Christian Peacemakers Team and traveled to one
of the most dangerous and violent parts of the world, Iraq.
For two years, he devoted his time and energy to promoting peace and
understanding between Christians and Muslims, Iraqis and Americans. In
partnership with local Iraqi human-rights organizations, he committed
himself to non-violent forms of intervention, such as accompanying
young Iraqi refugee children to the Syrian border, and living in the
same conditions as ordinary Iraqis in the downtown quarters of a
Baghdad neighborhood--without security or protection around his
apartment dwelling.
His dedication for helping others was always apparent in everything
he did. A quiet, good-natured soul, he insisted on understanding the
hearts and minds of every person he met, believing that ``there is part
of God in every person''. His complete faith in the goodness and
humanity of others allowed him to stand through more violence and
hatred than most of us will ever see in our lives.

[[Page E1048]]

Despite the roadside bombings that he walked by, despite the mortars
that fell above his home, and despite the death threats he received
before being kidnapped, Mr. Fox always understood why he was in Iraq.
In his own words, he said: ``We are here to root out all aspects of
dehumanization that exist within us. We are here to stand with those
being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that
dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from
dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize
their own souls.''
His legacy will always serve as a testament that to fight for what
you believe in and to understand others is not to use violence or
coercion. We preserve the dignity of our humanity and our goodness by
each loving action we take on behalf of others.
``Too many are willing to die for war and too few are willing to die
for peace.''

[From Connection Editorial, Mar. 16, 2006]

Tom Fox

In the pages of The Connection, since the beginning of the
war in Iraq, we have periodically been called to write
obituaries for men and women who have been killed in the
conflict both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These were people who traveled to Iraq in service to their
country. Losing them has been devastating to family and
friends; their grief is sometimes tempered by knowing that
their loved one died in doing something they believed in.
The war in Iraq also served as a call to service to Tom Fox
of Springfield. It was a call of a different kind, but one
driven by deep conviction and a sense of duty. Fox, a Quaker
and a pacifist, was troubled by the U.S. military response to
terrorism, and traveled to Iraq as part of a Christian
Peacemaker Team.
Fox and other members of his team were taken hostage in
November 2005, and Fox's body was found last week.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams group ``embraces the vision
of unarmed intervention waged by committed peacemakers ready
to risk injury and death in bold attempts to transform lethal
conflict through the nonviolent power of God's truth and
love.''
In a Feb. 16, 2005 interview with the Connection
Newspapers, Fox said he believed peace in Iraq could only be
achieved through non-violence.
``[The Iraqi] people are not being served by violence,''
Fox said. ``It doesn't help anyone. There is always going to
be conflict, but it's a question of how we deal with it. Do
we settle problems with words, or do we bring out the clubs
and act like cavemen?''
Tom Fox's friends and associates say that he would forgive
his kidnappers and his killers, knowing that they acted out
of fear. He would reject any anger or any effort at reprisal.
Fox wrote: ``We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask
that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We
forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in
loving both friends and enemies and by intervening
nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed,
we can contribute in some small way to transforming this
volatile situation.''
It is remarkable to see fellow human beings who walk in the
path of their convictions. It is heartbreaking to see the
person die as a result.
But his death was not futile--no more than the death 2,000
years ago of the one he followed.
____

[From the Springfield Connection, Mar. 23, 2006]

Carrying the Light: Friends of Tom Fox Remember His Life, Urge
Peacemaking Work to Continue After His Death

(By Amber Healy)

In the nearly two weeks since news of his death became
public, friends of Springfield native Tom Fox have been
trying to make peace with their friend's passing.
He was no martyr, they say. Rather, he would most likely be
uncomfortable with all the attention focused on his work in
Iraq as part of the Christian Peacemaker Teams for the past
few years.
``When Tom went to Iraq, we saw a side of him that we
weren't aware of before,'' said Doug Smith, clerk of the
Langley Hill Meeting of Friends, a Quaker congregation in
McLean.
Fox kept a blog in which he wrote about his struggles and
work in Iraq, Smith said, which provided a deeper look into a
man who had a ``depth of spirit'' he didn't reveal to many
people.
Smith thinks it was this unassuming nature that helped Fox
connect with the Iraqi people, living among them in Baghdad
for three- or four-month intervals since 2003 and collecting
their stories of loved ones who had been imprisoned or taken
hostage.
``He was able to sit and talk with just about anyone,''
Smith said. ``There wasn't anything extraordinary about
him.''
Fox joined Christian Peacemaker Teams, a non-government
organization promoting peace, with headquarters in Chicago
and Toronto, as an alternative to impending war after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He did not join CPT with
the intent of going to Iraq, Smith said, but instead because
``it was something he wanted to do. He liked that [they were]
a group that tried to get into the middle of a conflict, hear
all sides and find a way to bring them together.''
As a Quaker, Fox was following in ``a long history of peace
work and social activism,'' something he ultimately gave his
life for, Smith said.
The Rev. Carol Rose, a director at CPT, said she first met
Fox when he began the training all volunteers go through
before being assigned to one of the eight conflict zones they
work in around the world.
While in the middle of one of the most dangerous places in
the world, Rose said Fox ``always had a peaceful presence. He
was very much at home there,'' despite being well aware that,
as a foreigner, especially as an American, it would be best
to keep a low profile.
Fox all but refused to ``blend in,'' she said, instead
preferring to go to checkpoints around Fallujah, talking with
the guards who worked there and the residents who spent hours
waiting to cross to the other side.
Fox had a natural curiosity and desire to learn about the
people he'd meet, said Rose.
``There was no hope in trying to keep Tom hidden, there was
no way to keep him from standing out,'' she laughed. ``He was
well-known and well-loved by his Iraqi colleagues.''
CPT's continues in Iraq, she said, despite Fox's death and
the uncertain fate of Harmeet Sooden, James Looney and Norman
Kember, three coworkers who were kidnapped along with Fox
back in November. Fox was the first CPT member to be killed
in Iraq, she said.
If things had worked out differently, Fox could have been
assigned to work in Palestine, or on a Native American
reservation in Canada, or in Colombia, where other CPT
workers are placed. Instead, he made himself at home in Iraq,
said longtime friend Paul Slattery.
``Tom had a quiet self-assurance that this was where he
wanted to go, that there were people in Iraq that were
hurting and he had to go and do what he could to help them,''
Slattery said.
Working in Iraq, helping to create a Muslim group based on
the CPT practices, was the ``high point'' of Fox's life, he
said.
``If Tom had come back here and lived to retirement age, I
can see him sitting in a rocking chair and looking back on
his life in Fallujah and Baghdad with a smile on his face,''
Slattery said.
There have been moments when Slattery said he has
questioned himself, wondering if maybe he should have been
more assertive of his skepticism.
``But he wanted to do this, and it was my job to support
him. I don't feel guilty, but in a way I do feel bad, that
maybe in some way I wasn't the advocate for the people who
loved him and didn't want him to do it,'' he said. ``But that
wasn't my role.''
Fox had a strong faith and an equally strong belief that he
was ``called'' to go to Iraq, despite the dangers he knew
were there, said friend Pearl Hoover, minister of the
Northern Virginia Mennonite Church in Fairfax. Since Fox's
death, Hoover said part of the loss people have been feeling
is the sense of love that emanated from him.
``Tom knew how to love and let someone be where they are
instead of where he thought they should be,'' she said.
Some people may find it difficult to understand why he felt
so compelled to put himself in a war zone in the name of
peace, Hoover said, but it is no different than a soldier
signing up to serve his or her country.
``It is just as costly to be a peacemaker as it is to be a
warrior,'' she said.
The last time Fox was in Virginia, he met with his support
group at the McLean Family Restaurant to catch up, share
stories and photographs, said close friend Hoyt Maulden.
Something didn't seem quite right when Fox arrived, said
Maulden, but he didn't know what it was until Fox pulled out
a large, brightly colored gift bag that was
``uncharacteristically loud and colorful and flashy.''
Fox had brought back a hand-hammered copper plate from a
market in Iraq, which he had wrapped in gift bags for the
five people he kept in closest contact with while working
overseas, Maulden said.
``Tom always went out of his way to do the right thing, and
in this case, he wanted to do it up right and make it a
special event to give us these gifts,'' he said.
Memories like that one have been a comfort to Maulden since
learning of Fox's death, but he said it has been more
comforting talking with people who understand why Fox was
working in Iraq, why it was important to him and why it must
continue.
``Tom was so ordinary in some ways, but that is what's
important to remember,'' he said. ``It doesn't take a
superhuman kind of person to do what he did. Tom didn't do
anything other than be faithful to what he believed in.''
____

[From the Springfield Connection, Mar. 23, 2006]

A Simple Twist of Fate

(By Amber Healy)

A little over a year ago, I had the opportunity to sit and
talk with Tom Fox in the Borders bookstore in Springfield. We
spent a little over an hour and a half talking about his work
in Iraq, his dedication to peace and the path he felt he was
called to take. Neither of us had any way of knowing where
that path would take him a few months later, nor could he
have imagined the impact that conversation has had on me,
both personally and professionally.

[[Page E1049]]

Tom spoke about his life and his work with directness that
told more about his sense of purpose in life than any
article, any movie, or tale ever could. He believed in the
life he led, in the work he did, in the people of Iraq so
much that he put himself in harm's way for months at a time
over the past three years. And while he may not come back to
tell us all he learned, all the progress he made, all the
stories he heard of suffering and hard work and struggles,
his life speaks volumes.
A father of two grown children, Tom left behind a life of
respectable hard work as the assistant manager of a
department in a Whole Foods, a life of routine and safety, to
put himself where he felt needed. He joined the Christian
Peacemaker Teams to go into war zones, places by definition
rife with danger, where his life would be threatened just by
being there. He was trained about the dangers, make no
mistake about that. He was warned, he was prepared, he was
unwavering in what his mission in life held. He put himself,
as CPT members vow, in the way.
Tom was not the first American to die in Iraq. He's not
even the first person outside the war to lose his life there,
So what makes his loss different? What can we learn from the
life and death of a 54-year-old man?
He can teach us about forgiveness. Tom would want us to
forgive the person who killed him because his violent death
was an act of fear, not an act of terrorism. His capture,
along with James Looney, Harmeet Sooden and Norman Kember,
his CPT co-workers, was an act of desperation, not one of
hatred. The actions of the members of the Swords of
Righteousness Brigade have been out of anger at something
bigger than these four men. It was retaliation, perhaps, but
they picked the wrong people to victimize. He would be quick
to point out that thousands of lraqis have lost loved ones,
through kidnapping or death, for decades. He would mention
that his death is one of countless others in the name of war.
He would not want to be made an example of, he would not
want to be seen as anything other than another loss during
wartime. He was a soldier for peace.
For the teenagers who knew Tom and spent time with him at
Quaker retreats or youth groups, I am so terribly sorry for
your loss. Your teacher has brought you to a point where you
can follow in his footsteps in whatever way you are meant.
His love of life can be found in all of your smiles, the
memories you have of him, the stories you share with each
other.
For the members of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, I
grieve with you for the loss of your Friend. He was a truly
remarkable man who will be missed more than any of us can
say. But the life he led was full of light.
For Tom's children, my heart breaks for you. I have no
words to help ease your pain or offer you sufficient comfort.
Your father belonged to you more than anyone, and you shared
him with all of us. We are so grateful for that, and I hope
that might bring you some comfort.
Peace is possible. We just have to remember that it still
exists, it can be found, in time of turmoil and grief and war
and seemingly insurmountable pain and suffering. The light is
always there, even in the darkest night, the most frightening
storm, the most painful tests. Peace is always within reach
if you stretch out your hand to find it.
____

[From the (Alexandria) Gazette/The Connection Newspapers, Apr. 6, 2006]

Speaking From the Silence of the Friends of Alexandria Meeting: Quaker
Friends at Woodlawn Experience the Continuing Revelation of History,
Community, Spirituality

(By John Teschner)

A few minutes before 11 a.m., the greetings and
conversations in the hallway are petering out and the Friends
of the Alexandria Meeting at Woodlawn are slipping into the
meeting room to begin worship. Despite the faint hum of
voices still audible outside, the silence within the room
envelopes each friend as he or she steps through the door
into the stillness.
The room is either 155 or 140 years old, depending on which
side of the room the question refers to. Its white walls with
dark wood paneling are interrupted frequently by windows, and
the sunlight streams through the clear panes. A wood stove
still sits on one side of the room, but on this clear and
cold March morning the warm air is flowing from modern vents.
The wooden benches face towards the center, parallel to the
walls behind them. They are constructed simply and solidly.
Some bear graffiti left by the bored hands of idle men. They
are the name of people and places, Union soldiers temporarily
hospitalized or picketed on a long patrol, leaving a record
that they existed, that they had a home.
The worship meeting has begun, though no one has begun it.
The stillness folds inward.
``Quakers believe that they come into worship to wait on
God. We believe in continuing revelation, that God directs
us. By sitting in this silence and listening we receive that
direction and support,'' said Linda Spitzer, the clerk of
Woodlawn Quaker Friends Meeting, a position that, like many
aspects. of the Quaker community, resists definition but is
essentially an elected executive who serves a three-year
term.
``You're there with your own thoughts,'' said Meghan Evans,
a Friend in the meeting.
``Holding things up to the light,'' added Christine
Fernsler, who is a teacher at Sidwell Friends School.
Meeting lasts one hour. It is possible the entire hour may
be spent without a word being spoken. More commonly, a Friend
will be moved to stand and make a statement, putting into
voice thoughts engendered by the meditative silence. These
statements are usually brief and infrequent. Even a
``talkative'' meeting will contain more silence than
speaking. But words dropped into stillness are heavy, and
the ripples they leave in people's thoughts last long
after the speaker has taken a seat again.
``When people speak out of the silence, we often hear that
of God in them . . . It's not a canned sermon, what bubbles
up is what's on people's mind,'' said Spitzer.
``What's coming out of meeting--spoken and unspoken--is
perspective,'' said Holly Mason. ``It changes your
priorities--what's really important or less important. That's
what all religion really does . . . Meeting is the format
that works for me to worship . . . it puts a lot more
responsibility on you, on the individual. The ministry is not
the responsibility of some overreaching priest or clergy, but
from within and from each person.''
The Alexandria Friends Meeting at Woodlawn was founded by a
group of Quakers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They moved
to the area in the late 1840's for two reasons: to find oak
timber suitable for selling to Northern builders of clipper
ships and to start a plantation that would employ free blacks
and prove that it was possible to make money without slave
labor. ``You see how practical these people were,'' says
Jones.
Quakers find diverse ways of bringing the spirituality of
meeting into their lives. During the announcements after the
meeting, Mason stood up and offered to teach people how to
make soap. ``I just want to fill my house with people I make
soap as a hobby and I want to invite people over,'' she
explained.
``Most of us Quakers . . . think it's really important to
put into action what we believe in any way that we are gifted
or led. Even though it is a mystical religion, we get
involved in the world . . . the mix of mysticism and
practicality is why it appeals to me,'' said Nancy Jones, the
meeting's liaison to Ventures in Community, a coalition of
social services and faith-based organizations along Route 1.
``If God is in everyone of us--when I say God I mean the
spirit, life, there are so many names and they're all
inadequate--if that presence is within everyone, that leads
to certain ways of relating to other people and the world--
animate or inanimate . . . I'm comfortable with one-on-one
interactions with people. So I find myself situations where I
get to relate in that way . . . That's one of my strengths
and gifts.'' One way Jones expresses her gift is by being a
chaplain at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. She also has
volunteered, along with other Friends, with the Hypothermia
Project, staying overnight at Rising Hope's temporary shelter
for homeless people during the cold months.
Glenn Elvington describes how Quakers view the business and
budget decision-making process as a ``spiritual exercise.''
In earlier days, ``One of the few reasons to be read out of a
meeting was to go bankrupt,'' he said. ``The way Quaker
spiritual practice blends into everything we do in
interacting with the real world is through business meetings.
Business meetings held with a sense of worship.'' During
these meetings the clerk attempts to ``get a sense of the
meeting'' in order to reach a decision. The sense is based
more on a spiritual intuition of compromise and agreement
rather than on winner-take-all votes or autocratic executive
decisions.
``Sometimes people think Quakers are maybe naive,'' said
Fernsler, ``but it's a really thought-through seeking to
nourish what's good in others. I know it's not so easy
sometimes.''
Quakers are and have been active in movements for prison
reform, abolition, equal rights, and peacemaking. In the 19th
century, many Quaker homes were stops on the Underground
Railroad that helped escaped slaves reach free states. In the
21st century, Quakers have been prominent in the anti-war
movement. Tom Fox, who was taken hostage and ultimately
murdered in Baghdad,--. attended the Woodlawn Meeting until
the mid-1980's. Some of his family members still attend the
meeting, and many Woodlawn Friends shared strong bonds with
Fox.
``That's where the peacemaking is rooted, in building
fellowship between people,'' said John Stephens, who has
helped manage a memorial Web site for Fox. He was discussing
Quakerism's identity with Christianity and its philosophical
roots in the bible. Stephens cites the letters of Paul, which
describe the Eucharist as the simple act of sharing a meal
and bringing people together. ``That is really what Tom [Fox]
was most involved in,'' Stephens said, ``sharing meals with
people and building civility on frontiers between friend and
enemy.''
Gordon Roesler describes the meeting's participation in the
Friends Committee on National Legislation. ``One of their
primary goals is increasing peace and opposing war

[[Page E1050]]

. . . Peacemaking of course is more than just anti-war, much
more.''
``And more than just legislation,'' Stephens adds.
``We believe that peacemaking is very local as well as
international,'' Roesler said. He explains that the meeting
works closely with United Community Ministries, a local non-
profit. ``We view that as peacemaking.'' Stephens added to
this. ``What Tom's example reveals to us is that peacemaking
is not so much laying demands on the others but enduring
sacrifice to serve others . . . Much of peace activism [as
practiced by other entities] is making decisions for
others.'' But ``Christian peacemaking emphasizes serving
rather than dominating . . . With Christian peacemakers, most
of the work involves accompaniment, being with groups under
attack.'' But, Stephens said, Fox and his colleagues found
that in Iraq their presence often exacerbated violence. So
they ``had to reinvent'' their role. They ``trained a Muslim
peacemaker task force'' and on how to navigate the
bureaucracy of the different governing organizations that
hold power in the country.
Tom Fox's death brought his work to the attention of the
country, but the Friends at Woodlawn remember a life
dedicated to small acts of fellowship. Warren Treuer's
lasting memory dates from two decades ago, when Fox knew he
would be moving to a new meeting. ``One of the last things he
did was crawl under the building, in the mud, to wrap
insulation around the pipes,'' Treuer said.
As this recollection suggests, maintaining the historical
continuity of the Woodlawn Friends community and the building
that shelters it is a practical expression of spirituality.
This means that the meeting house's location within the
grounds of Fort Belvoir has created concern for many Friends.
``It's hard because here we are, a peace activist church,
sitting on the edge--surrounded by--a military base,'' said
Spitzer. ``We have a lot of members who feel very strongly
about peace.'' In response to Sept. 11, a military checkpoint
was built at the intersection with Route 1 that controlled
access to the meeting house as well as to the base. Some
Friends refused to pass through this entrance because of
their pacifist beliefs. Belvoir worked with the Meeting to
build an alternate drive. On Sunday mornings, the army allows
Friends to pass through without entering the checkpoint.
Jim Nations, clerk of the Trustees Committee (which is
comparable to a non-profit organization's board of directors)
says that he is appreciative of Fort Belvoir for giving them
Sunday access and letting them tap into the fort's water
system.
Although Spitzer says some soldiers do attend the meeting,
many people on the base, as well as in the wider community,
know little or nothing about the small white building tucked
in among the trees near Woodlawn Gate. James Cartwright was
stationed at Belvoir until he retired in 1992. ``The first
time I walked in here and sat down for worship I knew this
was where I was meant to be,'' That was 12 years ago. But
when he was stationed at Belvoir, ``I didn't even know it was
here. I drove past the building a whole lot and didn't even
know what it was.'' He said he hopes new signs will make that
more clear.
``There's been a lot of disagreement among Quakers'' over
their relationship with the military, Cartwright said. But
Quakerism hasn't changed his perceptions of his own military
service. ``My perception was changing before that, which is
what led me to find them.'' Cartwright had protested Vietnam,
but was drafted. He agreed to join voluntarily only if they
would allow him to enter the medical corps. He began as a
corpsman and worked his way up to respiratory therapist, the
trade he practices today.
Cartwright said the meeting has a lot of appeal for its
youngest members. ``We have families that come here because
their kids bring them back.'' Children say ``this is one
place they could always come and feel totally accepted for
themselves . . . We treat children with respect. We treat
them as equals. We're on a first name basis. They call me
James . . . We don't put any conditions on them, on how they
look or dress or be or believe . . . It's a very warm, loving
community . . . You see the teenagers interacting with the
little kids. You see little kids sometimes walk into meeting
and instead of sitting with their parents they sit with
someone else.''
Rachel Messenger brings her daughter to meeting, just as
her parents brought her. She has been attending meeting
``since I was two years old.'' She remembers when the
building had pit toilets and the Friends met only once a
month. ``It was a lot smaller then [in the 1960's]. It's
really evolved into what it is today,'' she said. ``I find it
different than the rest of the world. I find it a lot more
loving, more accepting, more tolerant . . . I wanted to raise
my daughter in a loving environment.''
Like many American communities, the Friends of Woodlawn are
confronting the gaping holes that war tears into the fabric
of daily life. Tom Fox heard something in the silence that
called him across the earth to bring simple acts of
fellowship into a war zone. But during the Civil War,
Woodlawn itself was a war zone, caught in the no-man's land
between North and South.
Chalkley Gillingham, one of the meeting's founders, kept a
journal during this period. During the battle of Bull Run, he
wrote, ``while we sat in meeting we heard the noise of war
and roar of battle.'' Later he recorded that ``we continually
hear the din of drums and guns.'' At various times, the
meeting house was commandeered as a picket for soldiers,
officers' quarters and a field hospital. But throughout these
disruptions, and true to his Quaker sense of practicality,
Gillingham maintained the workings of the farm as best he
could. May 13, 1864: ``Nearly done planting corn; also very
busy about the nursery and tree planting . . . our milk
business changed the first of this month into an ice cream
business--the [Union] hospitals [in Alexandria] have got
someone else to serve them [milk]. We buy all the cream we
can get in the neighborhood, say 20 to 50 gallons, and make
ice cream. [We] sell it at one dollar a gallon.''
Gillingham's tombstone can be found in the small graveyard
behind the meeting house. The names of Union soldiers are
carved into the walls and into the benches of the building
itself. The Friends of Woodlawn are sitting in the silence.
A friend is moved to speak. He recalls an article in the
Washington Post detailing how scientists studying the
background radiation of interstellar space hypothesize that
13.7 billion years ago, in one trillionth of a second, our
universe sprang into being from the size of a marble. The
Friend reads a quotation from the ``Tao Te Ching,'' seeking
to understand the deepest origins of science and faith. In
this historic, wood-paneled room, with its lantern brackets
and iron stove, it is this searching, the silence and the
speaking from it, that is the strongest link to Gillingham
and the meeting's past.

____________________