Remembering Jerry Pedersen: A veteran who advocated for the end of warfare | Opinion

Two wars, in Ukraine and Gaza, rage — costing the lives of so many civilians and serving as painful reminders that our world has not yet found a way of resolving differences without killing people. We’ve recently lost a man who spent his entire adult life trying to bring an end to the needless fighting. Jerry Pedersen, a man who served for 75 years as an ordained Lutheran pastor, fought to the end of his life to help us all recognize the futility of warfare.

For the past 13 years, working through the UC Davis Hospice Program, I have performed ceremonies to honor and thank men and women who are veterans of the Armed Forces. I’ve met and honored over 200 veterans during these 13 years, and Pedersen was one of them. He stands out as a leader and role model.

Opinion

At just 17 years old in 1942, Pedersen enlisted in the Marines during WWII, serving on the USS Missouri and witnessing from his ship the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima in August of that year. He then served as part of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s honor guard when the Japanese surrendered on the deck of the Missouri one month later.

The admonitions of MacArthur in his speech on that day were that we needed to find a new way to resolve conflict without warfare if civilization is to survive. This message resonated clearly and loudly for Pedersen.

At 21 years old, with a strong commitment to a higher purpose for humanity, Pedersen left the Marines and chose to become a Lutheran Pastor to pursue advocacy for peace and social justice within a faith-based context. As a Lutheran minister, he became an unwavering advocate for justice. His work took him to Baldwin Park, San Francisco State University and Mission Viejo in California, as well as Portland State University and the University of East Africa in Tanzania. His ministry supported civil rights, the United Farm Worker’s grape strike, equal justice rights for all, a Nuclear Freeze initiative and pursuing peaceful solutions to global conflicts.

Over the years of his ministry, Pedersen increasingly embraced deep concern and care of the environment as a Christian responsibility. His dedication to peace and justice was not confined to his congregation — he also served as a founding member of the Orange County Interfaith Peace Council and as board president for the county’s new Hospice Organization. Over the course of his 75 years working as a minister and advocate for peace, Pedersen was arrested six times for participating in anti-war protests. His most recent arrest was in 2014, at the age of 89, at Beale Air Force Base, protesting the military application of drones as weapons.

Pedersen walked the talk.

After retiring from his ministry role in 1992, Pedersen remained resolute in his advocacy for peace, drawing on his experiences as a WWII veteran to underscore the importance of nonviolence.

Upon relocating to Sacramento in 1999, he was a frequent visitor at the State Capitol, joining with social justice and anti-war groups to speak out for a living wage and farm worker rights and in opposition to the death penalty, gun violence, increased military funding and the invasion of Iraq.

By 2024, Pedersen was believed to be the last surviving veteran from the 1945 formal Japanese surrender on the Missouri.

From his days as a young Marine, serving in the Pacific during WWII, until the day of his death earlier this year, Pedersen continued on his journey to help transform our world into one where violence has no place in resolving our differences. He was as resolute at the end of his life as he had been as a young man on the importance of developing a non-military, non-violent socially just path to fuller peace. Today, we should celebrate a righteous life well-lived. Pedersen leaves a legacy of love and justice that will echo through the ages.

It’s up to us to continue his work to bring greater justice to our world and bring about the end of warfare once and for all.

Randele Kanouse retired after 35 years of working on California water policy. He now works as a hospice volunteer at the UC Davis Medical Center and serves on the board of directors for Joshua’s House, a hospice for the homeless program in Sacramento, and Al & Friends, which provides nutritious meals to the Monterey community’s most vulnerable residents.