Muhammad Ali, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, entered the combative ring of politics and culture by refusing to
serve in the United States military at the height of the Vietnam
War on this day in 1967.

"I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong," Ali famously said the
year before, the exact quote the source of some dispute, in a
battle that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. 

He later wrote, "I refuse to be inducted into the Armed Forces
of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister
of the religion of Islam."

https://www.charlesstanley.com/memorial/livestream

Charles Frazier Stanley
(September 25, 1932 – April 18, 2023)

Dr. Stanley founded and was president of In Touch Ministries,
which widely broadcasted his sermons through television and
radio. He also served two one-year terms as president of the
Southern Baptist Convention, from 1984 to 1986. He died
peacefully at his home in Atlanta, Georgia.

ROSS SIMPSON

On March 19, 2003, the United States, along with coalition
forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiated war on
Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s
capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a 
TV address (below), “At this hour, American and coalition 
forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm
Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave 
danger.” President Bush and his  advisors built much of their 
case for war on the specious claim that Iraq, under dictator 
Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building 
weapons of mass destruction.