By Jan Barry
Army Captain Paul K. Chappell attended West Point with an usual goal, "determined to study war the way a doctor studies an illness." What he found in his studies and in a war tour in Iraq was a pragmatic way of envisioning what it would take to create a cure for war fever. "In the U.S. Army, as in ancient Greece, the most admired trait in soldiers is not their ability to kill but their willingness to sacrifice for their friends," Chappell notes in his new book, Will War Ever End? A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century (Ashoka Books, 2009). His book argues that soldiers and folks at home, in order to protect each other, should mount a concerted campaign to wind down warmaking, due to the massively deadly threat of military escalation in the nuclear age. A better way of dealing with international disputes, he contends, is to adapt nonviolent tactics to produce conflict resolution that de-escalates violence.
In an essay titled "How Patriotism Can Save America," posted earlier this year on The Huffington Post and other websites, Chappell summed up his call for peace actions in terms that echo the stance of Veterans For Peace and other antiwar vets groups: "With the survival of our planet now at stake, our country needs patriotic Americans to question, think critically, and pioneer this democratic experiment. Now more than ever, our country needs us to help it become a beacon of hope that exports peace instead of war." Chappell, who served seven years on active duty after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 2002, is the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
In his book, Chappell argues that the war on terrorism "can never be won with an army alone, because terrorism is not a place we can occupy or a dictator we can overthrow." He also notes "how multiple deployments have pushed many soldiers to the breaking point." He argues that military actions are stoking the hatred fueling angry people who use terrorism as a tactic in fighting for their beliefs and causes. "If we are going to win the war on terrorism ... the United States will require many more soldiers, and not just soldiers who are armed with guns. ... During the challenging years ahead, our planet will need soldiers of peace who understand this truth of our brotherhood, because our survival in an interconnected world will not depend upon our ability to wage war. The fate of humanity will depend upon our willingness to wage peace."
Chappell grew up in a military family, where his view of war's widespread consequences was shaped by his father's raging threats to shoot himself. His mother, he adds, grew up in Japan during World War II and then moved to Korea, where her family endured the Korean War, where Chappell's father began a 30-year military career, which also included combat in Vietnam. "Throughout my childhood, I watched my father lose his grip on reality ... Rage overshadowed his once peaceful nature, and when I heard him complain about violent nightmares, I realized that something called war had taken my gentle father from me ... when I was a teenager, I wanted to know if war will ever end."
At West Point, Chappell studied peacemakers as well as warmakers. Gandhi, he discovered, was a British army medic during the Boer War in South Africa, where he took close measure of the British military culture that he outmanuevered to gain India's independence with a nonviolent campaign. Chappell found that some other West Pointers had come to the same conclusion as Gandhi. His book quotes General Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address as president, in which he warned that "another war could utterly destroy this civilization" and that people must learn "to compose differences" without war.
Chappell found a model for banishing war in the 19th century campaigns to ban slavery. "Slavery existed on a global scale for thousands of years, but due to the courageous actions of our ancestors who fought this injustice, no country today sanctions slavery. Together we have the capacity to create a world where countries no longer sanction war."
He was struck by how hard the military has had to work to train and prod soldiers to fight a battle, rather than flee for safety. This is proof, he argues, that humans don't have a gene for waging wars. And he took note of General Omar Bradley's comment after leading armies in World War II: "Modern war visits destruction on the victor and the vanquished alike. Our only complete assurance of surviving World War III is to halt it before it starts." Reflecting on his own military career, which started at West Point and spanned two world wars, Bradley stated, in a 1948 Memorial Day speech: "Wars can be prevented just as surely as they are provoked."
In the foreword to Will War Ever End?, Lt. Col. (ret.) Dave Grossman noted "there is cause to hope, and believe, that there can be an end to war. The West has won the Cold War without resorting to mega-death ... In recent years we have exercised the choice to step back from the brink of nuclear destruction." Chappell is currently finishing a sequel titled The End of War, designed to offer what Grossman calls a "toolbox" of information on peace actions.
For more information:
http://www.paulkchappell.com/
http://www.wagingpeace.org/
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Maybe It's Time to Cut Defense Spending
Dear VFP 21 & VVAW-N.J. Members and Friends
I just read in today's newspaper that the Obama Administration want to freeze domestic spending. Yet, when it comes to war and the military, money is no object, just like it was with the guy before him!
Tonight over dinner, this subject came up in a conversation with my son who is a Japanese language major and who has also spent time studying in Japan. We talked about how after the Second World War, the Japanese people adopted Article 9 to their constitution on May 3, 1947. This article prohibits the Japanese nation from engaging in war as a right of that nation and as a method for resolving international disputes.
The United States, on the other hand, has been in some kind of an overt or covert war against other nations almost continuously ever since V-J Day in 1945. In fact, many of these conflicts are unknown to most U.S. citizens. As a result, our country is morally, physically and financial bankrupt.
Perhaps what we really need is less spending on wars and weapons and more spending to uplift our citizens.
Please check out the information and pictures below and pass them on to all your contacts.
Peace and Solidarity
Ken Dalton
VFP 21, N.J.
VVAW
WHO "WON" THE WAR?
(Courtesy of John Ketwig, VFP 21 & VVAW)
I wonder at the reason this commentary was made? Is it saying that nuclear war is not such a bad thing after all? Or that Detroit, the home of the American automobile industry, has lost its way? My take is that the Japanese have a severely limited military activity as required by the surrender agreement we imposed on them at the end of WWII. The U.S., on the other hand, has a military budget greater than all of the planet's other countries put together, and there are no resources left for our societal needs. Our industrial base is gone. We find ourselves in the business of death and destruction, able to export nothing else, and now morally and financially bankrupt. What a shame.
Photos of Hiroshima in 1945 and today contrasted with photos of Detroit
I just read in today's newspaper that the Obama Administration want to freeze domestic spending. Yet, when it comes to war and the military, money is no object, just like it was with the guy before him!
Tonight over dinner, this subject came up in a conversation with my son who is a Japanese language major and who has also spent time studying in Japan. We talked about how after the Second World War, the Japanese people adopted Article 9 to their constitution on May 3, 1947. This article prohibits the Japanese nation from engaging in war as a right of that nation and as a method for resolving international disputes.
The United States, on the other hand, has been in some kind of an overt or covert war against other nations almost continuously ever since V-J Day in 1945. In fact, many of these conflicts are unknown to most U.S. citizens. As a result, our country is morally, physically and financial bankrupt.
Perhaps what we really need is less spending on wars and weapons and more spending to uplift our citizens.
Please check out the information and pictures below and pass them on to all your contacts.
Peace and Solidarity
Ken Dalton
VFP 21, N.J.
VVAW
WHO "WON" THE WAR?
(Courtesy of John Ketwig, VFP 21 & VVAW)
I wonder at the reason this commentary was made? Is it saying that nuclear war is not such a bad thing after all? Or that Detroit, the home of the American automobile industry, has lost its way? My take is that the Japanese have a severely limited military activity as required by the surrender agreement we imposed on them at the end of WWII. The U.S., on the other hand, has a military budget greater than all of the planet's other countries put together, and there are no resources left for our societal needs. Our industrial base is gone. We find ourselves in the business of death and destruction, able to export nothing else, and now morally and financially bankrupt. What a shame.
Photos of Hiroshima in 1945 and today contrasted with photos of Detroit
Monday, October 5, 2009
VFP Leaders Arrested at White House
Three-fourths of the VFP Executive Committee arrested along with others in DC today
Dear Colleagues,
VFP President Mike Ferner, Vice President Leah Bolger, and Treasurer Ken Mayers were all arrested in front of the White House today while standing vigil over three mock coffins draped with US, Afgan, and Iraq flags. Other VFP members arrested included Mike Hearington, Jim
Goodnow, Tarak Kauf, Tom Palombo and Louis Wolf. VFP Executive Director Michael McPhearson, along with Colonel Ann Wright and members of the capital area VFP chapters also supported the protest. The VFP members were among 65 arrestees who included Kathy Kelly, Liz McAlister, and Cindy Sheehan among others. All those arrested were taken to the National Park Police Headquarters, booked, and released. They now have 14 days in which to reappear at the National Park Police Headquarters either to pay their $100 fines or to obtain a court date.
Along with Veterans for Peace, a broad range of affinity groups, such as the Atlantic Life Community, Witness Against Torture, Veterans for Peace, World Can’t Wait, and Activist Response Team had members arrested. Other groups fully endorsing the action and participating were Peace Action, Code Pink, the War Resisters’ League, and Student
Peace Action Network.
The protest called for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ending the illegal bombing with US drones, including neighboring Pakistan, and the closing of the Bagram prison and ending indefinite detention and torture. We called for an end to these wars and
occupations, including that of Iraq, so that our resources can be used for life-sustaining actions including the funding and the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s infrastructure and medical assistance to Afghans and Iraqis, in addition to poverty reduction programs in the United States and world wide. We continue to call for accountability for those who have committed war crimes.
Kenneth Mayers
Veterans for Peace - Santa Fe
Wage Peace!
Dear Colleagues,
VFP President Mike Ferner, Vice President Leah Bolger, and Treasurer Ken Mayers were all arrested in front of the White House today while standing vigil over three mock coffins draped with US, Afgan, and Iraq flags. Other VFP members arrested included Mike Hearington, Jim
Goodnow, Tarak Kauf, Tom Palombo and Louis Wolf. VFP Executive Director Michael McPhearson, along with Colonel Ann Wright and members of the capital area VFP chapters also supported the protest. The VFP members were among 65 arrestees who included Kathy Kelly, Liz McAlister, and Cindy Sheehan among others. All those arrested were taken to the National Park Police Headquarters, booked, and released. They now have 14 days in which to reappear at the National Park Police Headquarters either to pay their $100 fines or to obtain a court date.
Along with Veterans for Peace, a broad range of affinity groups, such as the Atlantic Life Community, Witness Against Torture, Veterans for Peace, World Can’t Wait, and Activist Response Team had members arrested. Other groups fully endorsing the action and participating were Peace Action, Code Pink, the War Resisters’ League, and Student
Peace Action Network.
The protest called for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ending the illegal bombing with US drones, including neighboring Pakistan, and the closing of the Bagram prison and ending indefinite detention and torture. We called for an end to these wars and
occupations, including that of Iraq, so that our resources can be used for life-sustaining actions including the funding and the rebuilding of Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s infrastructure and medical assistance to Afghans and Iraqis, in addition to poverty reduction programs in the United States and world wide. We continue to call for accountability for those who have committed war crimes.
Kenneth Mayers
Veterans for Peace - Santa Fe
Wage Peace!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Convention '09
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Convention '09
". . . the best people and
the stoutest souls in the world . . ."
- Mike Ferner
Never been to a convention before. Heard about 'em often enough; I'd formed a few opinions: a large gathering of people from around the country (or state or world), a lotta speechs and meetings, funny hats and boisterous behavior, good opportunity to meet, drink, push agendas, settle scores, pick up bumperstickers, act like a fool . . . I was filled with prejudices and misconceptions.
But I'd been scorched by the emotional intensity of the Winter Soldier Hearings, March 13-16, 2008. As Security volunteer, I found myself part of the biggest and truest thing happening in America those four days. My particular job was small and anonymous, but I walked with heroes those days. My life was changed in ways marchs and vigils, signs and slogans could not match.
So I went to the Convention for the fellowship . . . and maybe to read a few poems. In a time when even political victory doesn't seem good enough, I went to rekindle my spirit, revive my dedication. I went looking for those heroes.
And in the hallways and meeting rooms, the food court and lit room, I found them . . . guys like Paul Brailsford, Englishman, Massachusetts VFP, activist and poet, who went to sea in 1932 at age 16, stood the lonely watchs as a deck officer in the Pacific during World War II and at age 93 remains a stalwart voice for peace and justice . . . and Suel Jones the Marine rifleman from Texas and the Vietnam War, who now divides his time between Alaska and Vietnam, went from oilfield machinist to gifted memoirist and friend to the Vietnamese people . . . and the service brats: Deborah Forter, Navy, M.F.S.O.'s new leader and Donna Edwards, Air Force, Maryland's new Congresswoman. Dragged around the world as service kids are, these eloquent women learned at an early age to love the warrior and hate the war . . . and everywhere I turned, there was Carlos - just like at Winter Soldier - a curly-haired Saint Everyman, tirelessly holding heaven and earth together, his presence our whole meaning, his tragedy our fight . . .
The names and faces go on and on, anchored by a corps of Vietnam veterans and their good spouses, enriched by those of other eras and re-affirmed by the strong, young faces of the men and women of the Afghan and Iraq Wars.
Days later, outside the Teaneck Armory, at our four year old vigil, Chapter 21 Prez Ken Dalton regaled the watchstanders with tales of conventions and conventions to come. Ken once lived up in Portland, Maine, had , like the rest of us - Nancy and Paula, Barry, Fallon, Hancock, the Drozds - a great time at '09. I interrupted him to ask, what's Portland, driving time from Jersey? 'Bout six hours. Next year I thought. Sounds good.
- Walt Nygard August 23, 2009
Convention '09
". . . the best people and
the stoutest souls in the world . . ."
- Mike Ferner
Never been to a convention before. Heard about 'em often enough; I'd formed a few opinions: a large gathering of people from around the country (or state or world), a lotta speechs and meetings, funny hats and boisterous behavior, good opportunity to meet, drink, push agendas, settle scores, pick up bumperstickers, act like a fool . . . I was filled with prejudices and misconceptions.
But I'd been scorched by the emotional intensity of the Winter Soldier Hearings, March 13-16, 2008. As Security volunteer, I found myself part of the biggest and truest thing happening in America those four days. My particular job was small and anonymous, but I walked with heroes those days. My life was changed in ways marchs and vigils, signs and slogans could not match.
So I went to the Convention for the fellowship . . . and maybe to read a few poems. In a time when even political victory doesn't seem good enough, I went to rekindle my spirit, revive my dedication. I went looking for those heroes.
And in the hallways and meeting rooms, the food court and lit room, I found them . . . guys like Paul Brailsford, Englishman, Massachusetts VFP, activist and poet, who went to sea in 1932 at age 16, stood the lonely watchs as a deck officer in the Pacific during World War II and at age 93 remains a stalwart voice for peace and justice . . . and Suel Jones the Marine rifleman from Texas and the Vietnam War, who now divides his time between Alaska and Vietnam, went from oilfield machinist to gifted memoirist and friend to the Vietnamese people . . . and the service brats: Deborah Forter, Navy, M.F.S.O.'s new leader and Donna Edwards, Air Force, Maryland's new Congresswoman. Dragged around the world as service kids are, these eloquent women learned at an early age to love the warrior and hate the war . . . and everywhere I turned, there was Carlos - just like at Winter Soldier - a curly-haired Saint Everyman, tirelessly holding heaven and earth together, his presence our whole meaning, his tragedy our fight . . .
The names and faces go on and on, anchored by a corps of Vietnam veterans and their good spouses, enriched by those of other eras and re-affirmed by the strong, young faces of the men and women of the Afghan and Iraq Wars.
Days later, outside the Teaneck Armory, at our four year old vigil, Chapter 21 Prez Ken Dalton regaled the watchstanders with tales of conventions and conventions to come. Ken once lived up in Portland, Maine, had , like the rest of us - Nancy and Paula, Barry, Fallon, Hancock, the Drozds - a great time at '09. I interrupted him to ask, what's Portland, driving time from Jersey? 'Bout six hours. Next year I thought. Sounds good.
- Walt Nygard August 23, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Recruiting for Peace
By Jan Barry
Suel D. Jones is on an unusual mission. The 60-ish Vietnam vet, who hails from Texas and has a hideaway cabin in Alaska, wants to create a Veterans For Peace chapter in Hanoi. “I already got 10 members,” Jones said last week as he talked up his latest campaign, while hawking copies of his memoir, Meeting the Enemy: A Marine Goes Home, at the 24th national convention of Veterans For Peace.
In his memoir, Jones wrote: “At a Veterans For Peace convention in 2006, I was asked about how I was recruited into the Marine Corps. I replied that I didn’t have to be recruited. My parents, the church, and society had recruited me since birth.” After years of wrestling with rage he brought home from the war, Jones moved to Vietnam and did volunteer work with the Vietnam Friendship Village, a hospital for children and Vietnamese veterans affected by Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the US military to destroy much of the forests in Vietnam. “I felt that as a warrior I was not complete until I returned to the country where I had fought in order to help heal the wounds of the war,” he added.
At a nearby table, Marine vet Doug Zachary of Austin, Texas, was selling a variety of books, buttons and bumper stickers on peace themes, including War Is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler, the legendary Marine major general and two-time winner of the Medal of Honor. Among the most popular items for men and women who stopped by between workshops on conflict resolution and other aspects of peacemaking were olive drab T-shirts emblazoned with the Veterans For Peace logo—a white dove on a military helmet—and an unusual team spirit message: “Recruiting for Peace.”
The event at the University of Maryland also drew Master Sergeant (ret.) Wesley Davey. A draftee during the Vietnam war, Davey ended up in Iraq with an Army Reserve unit at age 54. He arrived in College Park on a dual mission. A founder of the Minnesota chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Davey is also challenging the official “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that discriminates against gays in the military. “I was against this war, but felt that as the first sergeant I should deploy to Iraq to look out for the good people in my unit,” Davey told an assembled gathering of antiwar activists with ties to the military.
In a news article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2007, Davey bluntly said: “For the second time in my life, a president has plunged our country into a quagmire where there is no way to win a victory which can be defined. I thought we learned a lesson in Vietnam. I was wrong.”
Another participant was a mother of a young war veteran who attended a workshop on poetry for peace. “My son has several poems in this anthology,” said Tina Richards, a Missouri member of Military Families Speak Out, waving a copy of “Warrior Writers: Re-Making Sense,” a collection of poetry and art by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Writing and reading poems on the war at antiwar events was a great help to her son, who was struggling to cope with severe health problems after two tours with the Marines in Iraq. When requests to the VA and traditional veterans’ organizations for assistance proved fruitless, Richards said she found Veterans For Peace on the Internet.
“I called my son and said ‘we’re going on a march to New Orleans,’” joining a protest march by veterans’ peace groups in 2006 through hurricane-ravaged towns awaiting federal assistance while billions of dollars were spent on waging war in Iraq. During an evening of songs and poetry by participants, her son got up, she recalled, and read a poem he’d jotted down on a napkin. And now he’s a published poet, Cloy Richards, with a growing family of his own and a future he couldn’t see through the pain before.
The veterans’ convention in a Maryland suburb of Washington, DC, drew scores of people from across the United States. It also drew one of the newest members of Congress. “It is important to hear a voice for peace. We who are working for peace have to open up the space for people to move in that direction,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), who was elected last year. “I think that the work you do as veterans working for peace gives the rest of us validation for what we do,” she added.
In her keynote speech, Edwards noted that she grew up in a career Air Force family and lost her brother at age 27 as a result of “psychological problems” from his military service. “I feel that I, as a very strong opponent of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, am a great patriot,” she said. Yet in working to change these policies, activists need to “work for peace with respect” for other people’s perspectives, she advised. Noting that she went on a tour of Afghanistan with other members of Congress, she concluded that the US strategy of widening the war with more troops “will not work. I’m a big supporter of President Obama. But I disagree with him on this.”
Summing up the focus of the convention, Michael T. McPherson, executive director of Veterans for Peace and a Gulf War I veteran, wrote in the program book that “We must reach out and educate about the full horrors and impact of war. … We must provide and live alternatives to war. We must become examples of conflict resolution in all aspects of our lives and build solidarity with allies in search of justice. … This weekend we gather to gain strength and learn from each other to do that work.”
For more information:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
http://www.ivaw.org/
http://www.mfso.org/
Suel D. Jones is on an unusual mission. The 60-ish Vietnam vet, who hails from Texas and has a hideaway cabin in Alaska, wants to create a Veterans For Peace chapter in Hanoi. “I already got 10 members,” Jones said last week as he talked up his latest campaign, while hawking copies of his memoir, Meeting the Enemy: A Marine Goes Home, at the 24th national convention of Veterans For Peace.
In his memoir, Jones wrote: “At a Veterans For Peace convention in 2006, I was asked about how I was recruited into the Marine Corps. I replied that I didn’t have to be recruited. My parents, the church, and society had recruited me since birth.” After years of wrestling with rage he brought home from the war, Jones moved to Vietnam and did volunteer work with the Vietnam Friendship Village, a hospital for children and Vietnamese veterans affected by Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the US military to destroy much of the forests in Vietnam. “I felt that as a warrior I was not complete until I returned to the country where I had fought in order to help heal the wounds of the war,” he added.
At a nearby table, Marine vet Doug Zachary of Austin, Texas, was selling a variety of books, buttons and bumper stickers on peace themes, including War Is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler, the legendary Marine major general and two-time winner of the Medal of Honor. Among the most popular items for men and women who stopped by between workshops on conflict resolution and other aspects of peacemaking were olive drab T-shirts emblazoned with the Veterans For Peace logo—a white dove on a military helmet—and an unusual team spirit message: “Recruiting for Peace.”
The event at the University of Maryland also drew Master Sergeant (ret.) Wesley Davey. A draftee during the Vietnam war, Davey ended up in Iraq with an Army Reserve unit at age 54. He arrived in College Park on a dual mission. A founder of the Minnesota chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Davey is also challenging the official “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that discriminates against gays in the military. “I was against this war, but felt that as the first sergeant I should deploy to Iraq to look out for the good people in my unit,” Davey told an assembled gathering of antiwar activists with ties to the military.
In a news article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2007, Davey bluntly said: “For the second time in my life, a president has plunged our country into a quagmire where there is no way to win a victory which can be defined. I thought we learned a lesson in Vietnam. I was wrong.”
Another participant was a mother of a young war veteran who attended a workshop on poetry for peace. “My son has several poems in this anthology,” said Tina Richards, a Missouri member of Military Families Speak Out, waving a copy of “Warrior Writers: Re-Making Sense,” a collection of poetry and art by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Writing and reading poems on the war at antiwar events was a great help to her son, who was struggling to cope with severe health problems after two tours with the Marines in Iraq. When requests to the VA and traditional veterans’ organizations for assistance proved fruitless, Richards said she found Veterans For Peace on the Internet.
“I called my son and said ‘we’re going on a march to New Orleans,’” joining a protest march by veterans’ peace groups in 2006 through hurricane-ravaged towns awaiting federal assistance while billions of dollars were spent on waging war in Iraq. During an evening of songs and poetry by participants, her son got up, she recalled, and read a poem he’d jotted down on a napkin. And now he’s a published poet, Cloy Richards, with a growing family of his own and a future he couldn’t see through the pain before.
The veterans’ convention in a Maryland suburb of Washington, DC, drew scores of people from across the United States. It also drew one of the newest members of Congress. “It is important to hear a voice for peace. We who are working for peace have to open up the space for people to move in that direction,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), who was elected last year. “I think that the work you do as veterans working for peace gives the rest of us validation for what we do,” she added.
In her keynote speech, Edwards noted that she grew up in a career Air Force family and lost her brother at age 27 as a result of “psychological problems” from his military service. “I feel that I, as a very strong opponent of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, am a great patriot,” she said. Yet in working to change these policies, activists need to “work for peace with respect” for other people’s perspectives, she advised. Noting that she went on a tour of Afghanistan with other members of Congress, she concluded that the US strategy of widening the war with more troops “will not work. I’m a big supporter of President Obama. But I disagree with him on this.”
Summing up the focus of the convention, Michael T. McPherson, executive director of Veterans for Peace and a Gulf War I veteran, wrote in the program book that “We must reach out and educate about the full horrors and impact of war. … We must provide and live alternatives to war. We must become examples of conflict resolution in all aspects of our lives and build solidarity with allies in search of justice. … This weekend we gather to gain strength and learn from each other to do that work.”
For more information:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
http://www.ivaw.org/
http://www.mfso.org/
Saturday, May 9, 2009
2009 VFP National Convention
The 24th Veterans For Peace National Convention is Aug. 5 – 9 at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD. Come for a day of workshops ($75), two days of workshops ($150) or the full program ($200, if register by June 1). To register, go to http://www.vfpnationalconvention.org/.
Workshop topics include GI Rights and GI Advocacy, Counter Recruiting, Torture, War Profiteering, Winter Soldier hearings, Women’s Voices, Vets 4 Vets, VFP’s Mission and many more. Learn how, as veterans, we can do more to address the widening war in Afghanistan/Pakistan, as well as the war in Iraq that is supposed to be winding down.
At the 2008 Convention, VFP passed a resolution calling for: “the government of the United States to immediately withdraw all military and intelligence forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan; to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, in non-coercive forms, to help the Afghan people rebuild their own nation and their lives in cooperation with other nations in the region; and to allow the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own government without interference by the US.”
Workshop topics include GI Rights and GI Advocacy, Counter Recruiting, Torture, War Profiteering, Winter Soldier hearings, Women’s Voices, Vets 4 Vets, VFP’s Mission and many more. Learn how, as veterans, we can do more to address the widening war in Afghanistan/Pakistan, as well as the war in Iraq that is supposed to be winding down.
At the 2008 Convention, VFP passed a resolution calling for: “the government of the United States to immediately withdraw all military and intelligence forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan; to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, in non-coercive forms, to help the Afghan people rebuild their own nation and their lives in cooperation with other nations in the region; and to allow the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own government without interference by the US.”
Home for Veterans
By Jan Barry
Coming home for some war veterans means slipping off the track of chasing a fading American dream. Despite the yellow ribbons of support for the troops festooning patriotic front yards and backs of cars, there’s an army of homeless former soldiers seeking shelter in cities and towns across this country. Compounding the shock of becoming homeless can be another bitter discovery: Few communities provide programs to help veterans who hit a rough patch get back on their feet. Consequently, an estimated 154,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Why are so many once-able military troops living a hobo life straight out of bleak stories from the Great Depression? Besides the “factors affecting all homelessness -- extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income, and access to health care -- a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks,” says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans web site. While the VA assists about one-third of the homeless vets, the majority have to look for state and local programs.
“The most effective programs for homeless and at-risk veterans are community-based, nonprofit, ‘veterans helping veterans’ groups,” says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. “Programs that seem to work best feature transitional housing with the camaraderie of living in structured, substance-free environments with fellow veterans who are succeeding at bettering themselves. … There are about 250 community-based veteran organizations across the country that have demonstrated impressive success reaching homeless veterans. These groups are most successful when they work in collaboration with federal, state and local government agencies, other homeless providers, and veteran service organizations.”
When an empathetic religious group in a suburban New Jersey town proposed turning an empty church into apartments for homeless veterans, however, neighbors turned out to vehemently oppose the plan. What happened next showed the other side of America. When the proposal came up for a vote by the Highland Park Board of Adjustment recently, the room was packed by a crowd of veterans wearing military caps, peace activists in protest T-shirts, church members and residents of the central New Jersey area appalled by the neighbors’ complaints.
“Joe Vanliew broke down as he uttered his first words to the Highland Park zoning board, one of dozens of people who spoke Monday at a tense, four-hour meeting at which the board ultimately agreed to allow a shuttered church to be converted into an 11-unit housing complex for homeless veterans,” The Star-Ledger correspondent reported. "’I hope the sacrifices of every veteran are remembered tonight,’ the white-haired man said, his voice cracking. ‘They were in the thick of things, and I can't believe that anybody in Highland Park or anywhere else wouldn't support the veterans.’"
The objecting neighbors, who included a veteran or two, maintained that the conversion would add traffic to a busy street, ruin an historic building and put veterans in substandard basement-level apartments that, paradoxically, would cost much more in government grants than would be needed to buy houses on the market.
During the hearing, testimony was provided that the housing plan had the approval of federal agencies seeking to address the fact that “New Jersey has more than 3,500 homeless veterans, according to Victor Carlson, a psychologist and chief of homeless services for the Department of Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System,” The Star-Ledger reported.
The veterans’ home project was launched by Highland Park Reformed Church pastor Seth Kaper-Dale, who told the newspaper that “the project stemmed from years of preaching about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members of his congregation would ask him to pray for nieces and nephews going to war, then they asked him once again to join them in prayer when the veterans returned, he said. ‘They were praying for their nephew who came back and was sleeping on someone's couch.’"
For more information:
http://www.nchv.org/
http://www.nj.com/news/mustsee/index.ssf/2009/04/highland_park_agrees_to_conver.html
http://www.mainstreethp.org/polDoc.cfm?Doc_Id=590
Coming home for some war veterans means slipping off the track of chasing a fading American dream. Despite the yellow ribbons of support for the troops festooning patriotic front yards and backs of cars, there’s an army of homeless former soldiers seeking shelter in cities and towns across this country. Compounding the shock of becoming homeless can be another bitter discovery: Few communities provide programs to help veterans who hit a rough patch get back on their feet. Consequently, an estimated 154,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Why are so many once-able military troops living a hobo life straight out of bleak stories from the Great Depression? Besides the “factors affecting all homelessness -- extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income, and access to health care -- a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks,” says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans web site. While the VA assists about one-third of the homeless vets, the majority have to look for state and local programs.
“The most effective programs for homeless and at-risk veterans are community-based, nonprofit, ‘veterans helping veterans’ groups,” says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. “Programs that seem to work best feature transitional housing with the camaraderie of living in structured, substance-free environments with fellow veterans who are succeeding at bettering themselves. … There are about 250 community-based veteran organizations across the country that have demonstrated impressive success reaching homeless veterans. These groups are most successful when they work in collaboration with federal, state and local government agencies, other homeless providers, and veteran service organizations.”
When an empathetic religious group in a suburban New Jersey town proposed turning an empty church into apartments for homeless veterans, however, neighbors turned out to vehemently oppose the plan. What happened next showed the other side of America. When the proposal came up for a vote by the Highland Park Board of Adjustment recently, the room was packed by a crowd of veterans wearing military caps, peace activists in protest T-shirts, church members and residents of the central New Jersey area appalled by the neighbors’ complaints.
“Joe Vanliew broke down as he uttered his first words to the Highland Park zoning board, one of dozens of people who spoke Monday at a tense, four-hour meeting at which the board ultimately agreed to allow a shuttered church to be converted into an 11-unit housing complex for homeless veterans,” The Star-Ledger correspondent reported. "’I hope the sacrifices of every veteran are remembered tonight,’ the white-haired man said, his voice cracking. ‘They were in the thick of things, and I can't believe that anybody in Highland Park or anywhere else wouldn't support the veterans.’"
The objecting neighbors, who included a veteran or two, maintained that the conversion would add traffic to a busy street, ruin an historic building and put veterans in substandard basement-level apartments that, paradoxically, would cost much more in government grants than would be needed to buy houses on the market.
During the hearing, testimony was provided that the housing plan had the approval of federal agencies seeking to address the fact that “New Jersey has more than 3,500 homeless veterans, according to Victor Carlson, a psychologist and chief of homeless services for the Department of Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System,” The Star-Ledger reported.
The veterans’ home project was launched by Highland Park Reformed Church pastor Seth Kaper-Dale, who told the newspaper that “the project stemmed from years of preaching about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members of his congregation would ask him to pray for nieces and nephews going to war, then they asked him once again to join them in prayer when the veterans returned, he said. ‘They were praying for their nephew who came back and was sleeping on someone's couch.’"
For more information:
http://www.nchv.org/
http://www.nj.com/news/mustsee/index.ssf/2009/04/highland_park_agrees_to_conver.html
http://www.mainstreethp.org/polDoc.cfm?Doc_Id=590
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