(b.1945-d.1971)

At age 18 when Ted was called to the draft in the Vietnam War, he wrote a letter to his Draft Board: he did not mind serving his country like other young men, but that he needed to serve as a peace worker. And with that Ted, a pacifist, became a conscientious objector who served as an agricultural worker in Vietnam. He volunteered with the Vietnam Christian Service (VNCS) for two years in Di Linh (pronounced zee-ling) working with a Montagnard hill tribe. He helped them with agricultural production, drawing on experience from his family farm in Ohio.

He was killed on April 26, 1971 by North Vietnamese forces when they first attacked the volunteers’ house with rockets, and then invaded. The soldiers did not know who Studebaker was, they merely saw him as an American and therefore a threat. The lives of his wife and other volunteers were spared.

Part 1: Conscientious Objector

1. Ted Describes Di Linh & Sings a Folk Song

Audio recordings come from Ted Studebaker in Vietnam and used here courtesy of Gary Studebaker. The CD can be purchased from Brethren Press.

Transcript to first video:

Howard Royer: Today we’re visiting with Ted Studebaker of West Milton, Ohio, near Di Linh, Vietnam, where Ted is on project with Vietnam Christian Service. Ted, tell us a little bit about the area. We’re kind of in the midst of what has been some military activity. I guess it’s rather infrequent now, but describe a little bit the setting of your work here in Di Linh.

Ted Studebaker: My setting in Di Linh is located in the highlands of Vietnam. Its location is about a hundred-and-forty miles north and east of Saigon. In my setting is a very mountainous type of terrain. The populations around where I’m working are predominantly Montagnard, and much of my work is with the Montagnard people. These people are of several different tribal backgrounds, but they speak one main language. And also in the town where I live, there are many Vietnamese living. But our primary work here in Vietnam Christian Service is with the Montagnard people here in this highland region.

[Ted plays his guitar while singing.]

🎶 Come go with me to that land… ×2 /

Come go with me to that land where I’m bound / repeats×2

There’ll be singing in that land, chor’ses ringing in that land… ×2 /

There’ll be singing in that land where I’m bound / repeats×2

There’ll be freedom in that land… ×2 /

There’ll be freedom in that land where I’m bound / repeats×2

There’ll be sharing in that land, people caring in that land… ×2 /

There’ll be sharing in that land where I’m bound

There’ll be sharing in that land, everybody caring in that land… ×2 /

Sharing in that land where I’m bound.

There’ll be love in that land… ×2 /

There’ll be love in that land where I’m bound / repeats×2

There will be peace in the land… ×2 /

There will be peace in the land where I’m bound…🎶

2. Ted Describes His Work

Transcript to second video:

Howard Royer: What are some of the projects that you’re endeavoring to sponsor here as it relates to the Montagnard people?

Ted Studebaker: In Di Linh we have, I guess what you’d call, kind of a well-rounded-out program. We have a community-development worker who works in community-development programs, in education, in making loans to various villagers to buy things such as hogs or start little shops or stores. Also, we’re encouraging the starting of a new cooperative for Montagnards to cooperatively buy and sell things. In the area of health, we have a nurse working here who holds clinics in the villages and is very active in medical facilities and helping out with the medical problems and needs of these people. [A helicopter passes overhead.] And I’m here working in agriculture. In agriculture we have various programs of testing various rice varieties and working in gardening. We have rototillers that we rent to plow the paddy lands, a rice huller machine. We have some other programs to help Montagnards and encourage them to use fertilizer and so forth and helping them advance their agricultural knowledge here.

3. Ted's Siblings Describe His Preparation for Life

Transcript to third video:

Gary Studebaker: Ted grew up in a church, like I said before, one of the peace churches, Church of the Brethren. Not only was the church influential to him, but he genuinely came to that conclusion that, you know what, I need to serve people.

Doug Studebaker: Ted was in Vietnam working as an agriculturist in Church World Service. It was in partial fulfillment for his conscientious objection stance with our military draft.

Gary: He went over there with some experience. We came from a 140-acre farm in southern Ohio, so he had a lot of farming experience. And so he took those skills over with him.

Doug: He didn’t have a problem going to war, but he wanted to be a peace worker.

Gary: When he was 18 years old, all individuals declare where they stand with the draft. And he wrote a letter to his draft board. He says I realize that 90% of the people my age will go into the military, and he accepted that, but he said my journey is different.

Mary Ann Cornell: I think Ted was very driven. He finished his undergraduate work in three years. So, he was a hard worker. He got the most out of his classes as he could.

Gary: Here was a man who went to Manchester College. He was a sociology and psychology major. He studied people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He studied Martin Luther King. He was genuinely interested in these martyrs, in these peacemakers. And he went to Florida State and got his social work degree. Ted was very people oriented. He was ready to take a look at life, see what needed to be done, and do something about it. He was setting out to do what he felt this world needed—somebody who was willing to be a worker, to bring people together. If it wouldn’t be with agriculture, which it was with him in Vietnam, it was with his guitar, bringing people together with his guitar. He knew how awful and how much killing was going on in Vietnam. But yet, he also knew that he needed to take a stand. Ted was not going to be silent.

Doug: Before he went to Vietnam, he asked some very probing questions. Can I really make a difference there, I mean, or am I just going to be another American in the midst of all this turmoil? I think he hadn’t found all those answers but enough that he went.

Ron Studebaker: I had a discussion with Ted when shortly after, I think, he finished at Manchester College, and he very clearly said that he wanted to serve other people. That was prominent in his thinking and his expression. And I remember he felt that he needed to further his education, and then just get out and participate, and get involved in a longer journey. He knew that I had experience in overseas volunteer work, and likewise Gary, but he asked a lot about that. One of the things in a letter he said to me, that stuck with me, he said you know, I think I’ve learned in my short time that you must stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.

Mary Ann: Our mother always said that Ted was a serious thinker even at a very early age. He was fun loving, but he considered a lot of things, I think, earlier in life than most people do. And therefore his life was different than most people’s.

Ron: It was a matter of conscience. And he followed that conscience.

Read Ted’s essay:

“My Rights and Values as a Conscientious Objector”

Part 2: Who Shared His Joy of Life

Ted embraced the Koho (pronounced caw-ha´) and their culture, one of many hill tribes collectively known as the Montagnards. His humor, compassion, and openness to differences earned him the respect of Vietnamese civilians and U.S. soldiers alike.

“Life is great, yeah!”

…That was Ted Studebaker’s favorite saying. He used those words to close letters sent home from Di Linh.

Ted was the seventh of eight children born to Zelma and Stanley Studebaker. He enjoyed growing up on the family farm with a pond for swimming and horses for riding. He had a great sense of humor; for example, as a teenager, he’d drive down country roads and make his car backfire to startle farmers working in their fields. Ted learned to play the guitar. He entertained himself and friends with songs popular during the 1960s. Strong and athletic, Ted excelled in sports. He played football in high school and in college. He loved the game, and he didn’t mind roughing up other players.

Ted had a serious side, too. He knew people suffered in other parts of the world. He wanted to help ease that suffering. Ted fulfilled his mission by volunteering with the Vietnam Christian Service.

Ted loved his work in Di Linh, and he loved the Koho people with whom he worked. Vietnamese people also lived in Di Linh. American and South Vietnamese soldiers were stationed nearby in a military compound.

Ted learned the Koho language. He also learned Vietnamese. Ted could speak to everyone he passed whether Koho, Vietnamese, or American. And he took time to make friends and have fun—walking on his hands, strumming his guitar, and even playing ball with American soldiers.

It was in Di Linh where Ted fell in love with Lee Ven Pak (Pakdy), a fellow volunteer from Hong Kong.

Ted was happy, and life was great despite the dangers of living in a war zone.

1. Ted Describes the Montagnards and Building Rapport

Transcript to first video:

Howard Royer: What are some of the distinguishing features of the Montagnard people—things that make them distinctive from other Vietnamese?

Ted Studebaker: The Montagnard people are considered a minority group in Vietnam, and as such they have many similar problems to other minority groups anywhere in the world. For one thing, their education and their rate of literacy is very low. Perhaps maybe only one or two or three percent of these people are literate enough to read and write. So, they’re very different in backgrounds ethnically—very different backgrounds in terms of their beliefs, traditions, and cultures. They’re more animistic in belief, and we would say more backward than the Vietnamese people.

Howard: Are they in one or two towns or scattered widely here in the Central Highlands?

Ted: All throughout the Highlands of Vietnam are different tribes of Montagnard people. The tribe that we’re working with here is called the Koho group of Montagnards. They speak the Koho language. But throughout Vietnam, perhaps there are 20 to 25 groups of Montagnard people speaking different dialects and having different traditions.

Howard: So unlike most volunteers who find it’s pretty necessary to learn to speak Vietnamese, you had to go beyond Vietnamese and learn a second language.

Ted: Yes, learning the Koho language is really helpful. It helps you get around in the villages. It helps you in being accepted by the people.

Howard Royer: One of the things that struck me, Ted, is the rapport you have with a number of people. They don’t seem to mind the fact that you’re an American. Or do they?

Ted Studebaker: Um, I suppose it depends of who you’re speaking of—the Vietnamese or the Montagnards, but perhaps, maybe not too much that either. I think rapport is something you develop with people by being here, by living with them, especially by understanding some of their language, speaking their language, and understanding their culture and their problems. I think it can be developed in any person that has a desire to live here for a while and understand things. It’s probably not as difficult as it might seem if you’ve got the time and effort to put into wanting to understand these people, their problems, and their language.

2. Ted Sings ‘I Love the Mountains’

Transcript to second video:

[Ted plays his guitar while singing.]

🎶 I love the mountains. I love the rolling hills.

I love the blue skies. I love the daffodils.

I love the campfire when the lights are low.

CHORUS: (×3)

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

[A percussion instrument joins in to mark time.]

I love the mountains. I love the rolling hills.

I love the blue skies, and I love the daffodils.

I love the campfire when the lights are low.

CHORUS ×2

[A solo harmonica repeats the first two lines of the song while Ted hums.]

[Ted resumes singing for the third line.]

I love the campfire when the lights are low.

CHORUS ×3 [Chimes join in on the chorus.]

[Solo guitar bridge]

[Ted resumes singing, accompanied by guitar, percussion, harmonica, and chimes accompaniment]

[The chorus repeats in the background as in a round]:

I love the mountains. I love the rolling hills.

I love the blue skies, and I love the daffodils.

I love the campfire when the lights are low.

CHORUS ×2

Boom

[Ted plays the final strum, and chimes trail up and out to end the song.] 🎶

3. Ted's Siblings Describe His Love of Life

Transcript to third video:

Nancy Smith: Ted was a fun-loving brother. He loved to walk on his hands across the yard at the farm. He was always playful with our children. And he was just a regular guy.

Ron Studebaker: Ted was also quite an athlete. He loved to participate in sports. I think he did it not so much for the competition as that, to him, it was more the journey rather than getting to the goal itself.

Doug Studebaker: Ted was just an awesome big brother. I really admired my big brothers, and Ted and I were the closest—six years apart—and he was fun loving. This was a big and strong guy. He was the biggest among us, and he was a strong, vicious competitor on the gridiron, a wrestler, and a pole vaulter—held the pole vault record at our school. And I just want to point that out, that what an active and athletic, a chiseled guy that he was in terms of just his physical prowess.

Gary Studebaker: Somehow people seemed to migrate to him. He was known for gathering crowds around him and doing folk music. He was good at the guitar. He took his guitar to Vietnam with him.

Lowell Studebaker: He went to war without weapons of war. His weapons were what was in his heart, his training to be with an underprivileged people and to try to lift them up and to help them. And unlike a soldier who goes to war with weapons, he went to war with weapons of peace.

Nancy: With a guitar. With his guitar.

Gary: He was so enthusiastic to be in Vietnam, not only did he learn the hill tribe language Koho in the hill tribe area, but he also learned the Vietnamese language. So he went over to do agriculture work, that is really what he went to do, but besides doing agriculture work, we know there were some friendships.

Doug: Certainly he enjoyed the adventure, but I think he enjoyed just being enriched by this culture that he was working with, and trying to, at the end of the day, trying to pass on some love and to see another side of America at a time when there was such great turmoil. Bill Herod, his supervisor there in Vietnam, he said it was good to be there with Ted because you knew he belonged. And he would joke with the girls on the way up, and kid the little children and so forth, and switch easily between Koho and Vietnamese and English. He just totally admired the people that he was working with—felt invigorated by the cultural experience that he had.

Ron: He had obviously just melded into the feelings of what was going on in that country.

Doug: Ted was naturally a very likeable person. People liked him. And he had a sense of humor second to none. But he had tremendous humility that I think that he was just simply a great asset.

Ron: We found out that Ted also associated with some of the local American military in that area in terms of meeting with them on some off hours, playing basketball and other athletic events with them. So he was open to his communication with anyone no matter what.

Gary: He realized they were doing what they thought was right. They had to do what they felt was right. He had to do what he felt was the right thing to do.

Ron: I think the fact that the good Lord gave us each two ears and one mouth speaks volumes to that issue about it’s important to listen and hear what other people say, and clearly, Ted was super at that. Ted’s actions and his deeds were not by preaching and not by hammering things to people. It was more by example, and I think a lot of his life was just that—an example.

Lowell Studebaker: In Vietnam, I’m sure he was keenly aware of the mortar fire and the nightly attacks. There was an American military outpost not too far away, and there was always skirmishes.

Mary Ann Cornell: Ted sent tapes home all the time while he was there, and you could hear the mortar in the background, so you knew the dangers. But he seemed to be able to overlook that and just talk about what was going on there with the people that he was working with.

Linda Post: I think the positive things in life are shown very strongly through Ted’s work. He didn’t labor over any of the negatives. The word in the letter, “It’s dangerous here,” that was a one-time statement—nothing more than that.

Ron: I don’t think any of us ever got a negative letter from him saying, “Oh, I dislike this” or “I don’t like that.” It was always upbeat, an occasional thing about danger, but he was very upbeat and very positive, so I can imagine that he woke up every day just enthused and ready to go again.

Nancy: Ted always said, “Life is good, yeah!”

Gary: That’s how he ended his letters, and he just had that confident feeling.

Doug: How he was there was very joyfully, and he saw it as a real honor to be there.

Part 3: Ted was killed during an attack on his quarters. Years later, shared memories of Ted’s stand against war created a bond between his American family and his friends in Vietnam.

On April 17, 1971, Ted Studebaker married Lee Ven Pak (“Pakdy”), a fellow volunteer.

Nine days later, forces opposed to the United States began shelling the VNCS house. Ted, Pakdy, nurse Phyllis Cribby, and Daisy Benares, a rice expert, rushed to a bunker beneath a stairway. For unknown reasons, Ted returned to his room. Opposition forces entered the house with guns. The women survived. Ted died in a closet where he had raised chicks for the Koho. He died beneath a poster that read, “Suppose they gave a war—and nobody came.” There is some uncertainty as to who actually killed Ted.

Just before his death, Ted had written a response to a letter from a couple in Troy, Ohio. They had read Ted’s views on the Vietnam War in their local paper. They questioned Ted’s patriotism and understanding of scripture. Ted thanked them for writing but held his ground. “I condemn all war,” he wrote. Before the attack on their quarters, Ted showed his letter to Phyllis. Phyllis prepared the incident report after the attack.

On learning of his death, Ted’s family gathered on the farm. They scheduled a memorial service for May 3. In the meantime, news agencies around the world reported Ted’s death and the stand he took for peace.

Part 3: To Sow the Seeds of Peace

1. Ted Discusses Pacifism + ABC News on May 4, 1971

Transcript to first video:

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.

2. Ted's Siblings Discuss His Death

Transcript to second video:

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.

3. Ted's Siblings Discuss His Legacy

Transcript to third video:

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.

Since Ted’s death, the Studebaker family has continued to discover the impact Ted’s short life has had on other people.

In May 2012, two of Ted’s brothers traveled to Vietnam. Gary and Doug wanted to be among the people with whom Ted had lived and worked. On behalf of the entire family, they also wanted to honor Ted’s memory. The trip required months of planning, and before leaving, Gary and Ted collected flower seeds from their siblings.

In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Gary and Doug met the family of Trinh Cong Son (1939-2001). Trinh Cong Son wrote peace songs that Ted had added to his repertoire. In Di Linh, Gary and Doug met people who had known Ted, including the best man and the flower girl at Ted and Pakdy’s wedding. Their new friends helped them scatter the flower seeds and plant a tree in Ted’s memory. The trip confirmed what the Studebakers believed: All people value family, life, and peace.

During an interview of Ted’s siblings in 2014, a videographer asked whether Ted would have forgiven the people who killed him. “I’ve come to believe that Ted’s stance towards peace and reconciliation was so strong that he forgave them at that moment,” said Doug. “I believe that strongly.”