VFP Members - Why they joined and how they recruit
Leah Bolger
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
To be very honest with you, I'm not sure I was ever really willing to "wage war." I joined the U.S. Navy in 1980 because I needed a job. In those days women could not be given any combatant billets-we were all lumped into a group called "General Unrestricted Line Officers" or "GURLs" (Can you believe it?!) For the bulk of the time that I was on active duty (1980 to 2000), the U.S. was not involved in combat operations/war with anyone, so I didn't really have to face the moral dilemma of participating in an organization that "waged war." Although I qualified as an "expert" pistol shooter, (it was required in order to be the Duty Officer at several stations), my qualification shooting was the first time I had ever fired a gun, and I'm not sure I could shoot someone if asked to. Throughout my military career, I was pretty much the "odd woman out" politically-when I was a student at the Naval War College, I wrote papers on the value of the United Nations, and conflict resolution.
Why did you join VFP?
While I was on active duty, I believed that I wasn't allowed to join an organization like VFP. I knew I wasn't allowed to protest or speak out against our military policies. Although I believed in the values of VFP, I waited until I had been discharged to join. As our country has become more bellicose and misguided, I have become more outspoken and active with the peace movement. I am involved with several other peace organizations, but I feel that as a veterans' organization, we have more credibility and power in advocating for peace than some other organizations.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I am very proud to be the founder of Chapter 132, but getting the initial 10 members wasn't easy. Basically, I just did a lot of personal asking. I solicited members from the Benton County Democrats by speaking at a Central Committee meeting and got two members there. One time I saw a group of older men having lunch at a restaurant and I noticed that one of them had a copy of The Nation magazine on the table. I just walked up to them and said: "Hello Gentlemen! My name is Leah Bolger and I am a 20 year veteran of the Navy. I am forming a chapter of Veterans for Peace, and I can tell by your reading material that we may be of like mind...are any of you fellows veterans?" I think three of our members came out of that encounter! After I scraped up the initial 10 and we received our charter, I contacted our local newspaper, the Corvallis Gazette-Times. They did a nice article on us, and advertised our upcoming meeting at which over 20 people showed up, several of whom joined VFP. I try to get our membership to wear VFP t-shirts, buttons and ballcaps as often as possible, because that frequently will initiate a conversation and an invitation to join. I speak fairly frequently at rallies, vigils, etc., and I have also spoken to two Kiwanis Club chapters. I always identify myself with VFP and invite others (not just vets) to join us. Our chapter frequently sponsors other community events, and we participate in local 4th of July, Veterans' Day, and holiday parades. We try to keep our name and the VFP logo in the spotlight as much as possible. Additionally, I carry business cards with me with the VFP logo and my contact information. When someone remarks on my button or t-shirt, I give them a card and ask them to contact me.
Pat Tate
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
I have gone through many transitions in that regard. I was in fact a conscientious objector prior to my reclassification to 1-A and subsequent enlistment to avoid a combat infantry assignment. I had read the writings of Lord Bertrand Russell extensively during the mid-60's and felt that I wanted no part of war. However I was unable to find anyone who could assist me in pursuing CO status and as the draft began to chase me I feared prison more than war.
My conversion to being pro-war came as a part of the US Army basic (brainwashing) training. I became a grudging convert.
I can proudly say that I was fortunate in that I never had to fire directly at the 'enemy'. I was assigned as a "senior field wireman," a job that really did not exist and I actually worked as a supply clerk (scrounger) with the assignment to provide the members of my 105mm Howitzer Battery with minimal basic necessities. I was responsible for getting food and other items to my unit which was split between two Special Forces camps in Da Nang province, near the Cambodian border. Access was by air only.
I learned much about the stupidity of the military and as time progressed determined that, though I would do my basic job, I was unwilling to 'wage war' against any enemy that was not shooting at me first.
By the time of my discharge I was once again ready to take a stand against war. I spoke out within my own unit in Germany, where I was sent after Vietnam and continued to do so upon returning to my home. I did, however. have PTSD and survival was more of a criteria to me than activism.
It was not until the Iraq invasion started heating up that I felt it necessary to reactivate and hit the streets once again.
Why did you join VFP?
In 1998 I had met Fredy Champagne of Chapter 22 in Garberville CA at an Arts Festival where he was staffing an information table and I was selling pottery. We had a brief conversation and I had my first exposure to VFP. The activities he told me about lay dormant in my memory.
Fredy had told me of his trips to Vietnam to rebuild and heal. At the time of this meeting he was raising funds to take a local Little League team to Cuba. All of his activities were 'illegal', they violated sanctions that the government had imposed, but they spoke deeply to me about how by reaching out a hand in friendship we would find that we have no enemies. I felt that if this was what VFP stood for then it was the group for me.
I joined VFP in April 2003, and as our invasion of Iraq continued I wanted to stop the insanity. Fredy helped me through the infancy of forming Chapter 116 in Mendocino County and has been a valued friend ever since.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I never hesitated to reach out to other veterans. I partcipate in a local VA sponsored 'PTSD support group' and spoke to my fellow veterans about VFP. Some were resistant to any organization, but over time they have all expressed to me that they see value in what I do. I do not try to convert them, just to give them a regular brush with who we are and what we seek in terms of a future.
Probably though my greatest impact on membership came in 2005 when I took my bus "The White Rose" to the Dallas convention, on to Crawford TX and on again to Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Those actions undertaken by an impromptu group of VFP members raised the name of Veterans For Peace into the national media. No, we were not alone, there were Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families for Peace and Code Pink, just to name a few.
Suddenly though, the media recognized us, Veterans For Peace, we were not willing to follow leaders into unnecessary war. We envisioned a New World Order, not of domination and destruction, but of cooperation and trust.
Fredy Champagne
What moved
you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now
wages peace?
I joined the US Army in the summer of 1965, before we knew anything abut Viet Nam. I was un-educated about politics at that time in my life. Upon arriving in country (Lai Khe), late '65, I was immediately exposed to the hypocrisy and lies of the war effort. It was apparent our job as a combat infantryman was to slaughter young people like ourselves. Only these people were guilty of nothing more than defending their homeland. I was appalled at the atrocities I observed, and lack of respect for civilian casualties. I was awestruck by the will of the Vietnamese people to stand up to the mightiest military machine the world had ever known, with nothing more than popguns, and win the support of their people. I learned the hard way about imperialism. I survived somehow, came home not very proud, and waged my own war against the system, against the army, against the war. I suffered and struggled many years with severe PTSD and lived in the mountains of Northern California preparing for the next American Revolution.
Why did you join VFP?
I had been organizing a project to take VN veterans back into Viet Nam to do humanitarian aid work on clinics and orphanages and search for healing, hoping to end the Trade Embargo against the Vietnamese. While recruiting vets to go to Vietnam with us, we ran into VFP members in Santa Cruz (Ruben Gomez, Steve Brooks) who influenced me to organize a chapter of our own in Garberville, CA. Our project to build the first medical clinic since the war was built in early '89, and opened on April 1st, 1989 in Vung Tau. Most of the team of 17 veterans on this trip were VFP members from Northern California and Oregon. Out of this project came Chapter 22 of Veterans for Peace. Information on teams of veterans returning to Viet Nam to do humanitarian aid work can be found at the website of the Veterans - Viet Nam Restoration Project at: www.vvrp.org.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
For many years in the late '80s and '90s, my best recruiting tool has been the many trips back and forth to Viet Nam on various projects and peace walks and veterans tours. I met and spoke with a great many veterans and was always able to bring VFP into the conversation. Any organizer that really works out there in the field with veterans can do the same thing, networking at it's best.
Our next most successful recruiting tool has been our beloved "Spirit of Garberville" peace bus that we have owned and operated for many years. We used that bus for many demonstrations, parades, protests, fairs, and events, and trips cross-country from Seattle to Boston, from Ft Benning to So-Cal, to Chiapas, Mexico and back. All of our trips resulted in media coverage, speaking events, and networking with organizations across the country. Our bus was always on the road with slogans, etc. and we were always attracting and meeting new members. Our bus was financed by a yearly sponsorship program that had the names of a dozen or more local businesses, groups or individuals painted on the rear decklid. At about $300 a pop for each per year, our budget usually allowed us to keep our bus up as a chapter project. Exposure, that's it. Our bus and it's traditions have been passed along to the VFP chapter in Eugene, and many thanks to the brave men and women of Oregon who continue to operate this Peace Bus as they continue to wage peace. Every chapter should get a bus, a van, truck or some other prop for use as above. Parades attract a lot of attention, whether you are admited, thrown out, or sucessfully march with the mases. New members see you, think about you, and call or track you down later.
Donald Storing
What moved
you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now
wages peace?
I was drafted in September 1972 just before starting my last term at M.S.U. I knew carrying a M-16 in Viet Nam didn't have too much positive to look forward to, so I enlisted in the USAF under their 90 day delayed enlistment so I could graduate in December of 1972. I did think about going to Canada, which was somewhat popular at the time, but being a newly-wed, I didn't think it would be fair to my wife to haul to Canada knowing it may be difficult to come back. I have an identical twin brother who was a conscientious objector and went through the hassle of getting his classification. I guess in retrospect I took the easy way out by enlisting. I didn't expect to be in combat so in my own way, back then I justified my decision, I would be relatively safe and out of harms way and not killing anyone. Once I was in and doing my job,which was a telecommunications technical controller, I realized I wasn't directly involved in the killing machine, but I was performing a support function for it. Even back then my comrades knew I wasn't in favor of the war, but I did put up with it for my own sake I guess.
I have always been a follower of Christ, and by virtue of that fact, war in and of itself has been against my personal views. I just can't see how anyone can profess to be a Christian and at the same time suggest that it's possible to condone fighting and killing for political interests. Period. The older and more weathered I get, the stronger I feel about this. I'm now spiritually, economically and socially comfortable enough to voice my opinions publicly without fear of retribution and I do so. I have been blessed for whatever reason, so I believe it is my responsibility to do what I think it right and just even if it does incur the wrath of others. Be that as it may, I sleep like a rock every night knowing I have done what I want to be remembered for, not what was easy or acceptable to the wealthy or those who believe there is some sort of convoluted righteousness in war.
Why did you join VFP?
VFP is a group of men and women who have tasted the wreckage of war and I believe also feel that it is their duty to try to set things on the correct path by setting an example to the rest of society that saving lives is always better than eliminating them. It has to be our hope than we can change mankind's determination that our own ideas and beliefs are superior to others and war is a way to ensure our own triumph.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I have been successful in bringing a few people to the VFP family but I try to pass the word by proudly wearing my VFP hats, pins, and tags so everyone can see them. When I am asked what they represent, I try to explain the virtues of peace vs. the tragedies of war. I then let them draw whatever conclusions they may glean from the encounter.
Sidney Hollander
What moved
you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now
wages peace?
I was not enthusiastic about WWII when it began. Although Jewish, my father felt the conditions of the Versailles Treaty were so punitive that they invited relatiation. I attended a Quaker college in Havenford, PA, and was president of the liberal club. I cast my first Presidential vote for the Socialist Norman Thomas because I believed FDR was as likely to get us into war as Hoover.
I joined the corps of commuters to DC for civil service, developing rationing plans. Two years later, it was clear that no further rationing would be needed and so I gave up.
Why did you join VFP?
Was a member of American Veterans Committee, a liberal WWII group, which closed as we do indeed. Years later I heard of VFP when the local chapter head spoke to our local peace group in the retirement home after 9/11, and it sounded good. I already belonged to other non-vet groups and still do.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
Mike Ludwig
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
What I experienced first-hand as a combat soldier in Vietnam convinced
me of the totality and irreversibility of the destructive and violent
aspects of war. It is the ultimate inhumanity. And if anyone thinks
there is something at all noble about war, I know they are sadly
mistaken. What has been solidified for me as well is the utter sham of
discussing the idea of a "just or unjust" war. What a travesty.
Why did you join VFP?
I needed a way to find my voice. A way that would allow me to be part of the solution to our warmongering and profiteering. I have a message that says "peace is the way". Veterans For Peace gives me my stage and my opportunity.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I have been an active member of chapter 39 (Cleveland and Northern Ohio) for a little over 2 years. I have spoken to several groups, not necessarily inclined toward our message, and have been successful in bringing in a combat veteran of the Iraq war and about three other veterans from various wars.
Philip Smith
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
I enlisted in the Army in 1964; because I didn't feel comfortable bearing arms, I opted for training as a medic. During the course of my service (in Europe), I was exposed to the thinking of the command structure (including a "slide rule" on which the scales "megatons" and "distance from population center" provided a print-out of "megadeaths"). After my discharge, I participated in the protests against the Vietnam War and remained relatively active in politics.
Why did you join VFP?
I joined, and helped to establish the Chapter, in early 2003, after it
became evident that the Bush Administration was going to invade Iraq in
spite of all the evidence and common sense.
VFP has provided a "home" for me and others who can be so much more
effective working together than we can in our individual pockets of
despair. As members of VFP, our expressions of concern have much more
resonance with the general public.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
When we started the Chapter we purchased an advertisement in the local paper, soliciting membership. That yielded the core group we now have. Membership has been augmented by one-on-one discussions, public events (such as our demonstrations, plays, art shows, radio program, etc.). There is no magic bullet; many good and sympathetic veterans will join the larger events (e.g., the Independence Day parade), but are otherwise occupied and prefer not to be involved in the more mundane activities.
Larry Cole
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
The interesting thing about this question is that I was drafted to the Vietnam conflict; went because of the future problems associated with not going; and never really believed in armed conflict as a solution for disagreements. The change was that I went from someone who was a Pennsylvania hunter who owned a shotgun, a 300 Savage rifle and a 22 rifle to a person who will not even handle, let alone own, a weapon.Why did you join VFP?
I have been against armed conflict, especially since we are supposed to be an advanced civilized country, for a long time. I do not believe our pre-emptive stragedy will help in solving any of the world's problems. We always seem to talk Democracy while we support Dictators.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I don't know if I have been successful, but I reach out to anybody willing to listen to reason. I have to admit, they seem to listen to me, I think a lot because of my Veteran's status and also because they know that I also support and work on other Veteran's issues, such as Operation Gratitude.
Regina Purcell
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
A tried and true Democrat, I waged for peace against Reagan while I was in the US Navy on active duty.(Remember the Contras?) I am so tired and scared of a president and administration that is allowed to wage an illegal war, alienate the rest of the world, and do nothing for the middle class, which is where most veterans come from, and, well, enough is enough.
Why did you join VFP?
Because of its message, its membership and its good memory of what works and what doesn't in making a difference.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I am about the youngest veteran who attends our local VA clinic in this snowbird-populated tourist town, and am often in contact with veterans from all conflicts! They see my VFP bumper sticker and it starts a conversation. Many of them are disillusioned with this war, and it prompts them to take a stand, too.
Ron Dexter
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
I have been a peace activist since leaving the military. I learned in the military that my government lies to me and that made me distrust my government.
Why did you join VFP?
I met Lane Anderson before this war started during marches against this
war and liked what VFP stood for. What has made VFP successful here in
Santa Barbara is Arlington West. It is an ideal activity to attract and
maintain activists.
I have come to strongly believe that peace activists must appear
and sound "just like every other American" to be effective beyond the
already converted. Protesters who look and act like 60's hippies hurt
our cause.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
Arlington West
Robert Krzewinski
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
I was a lemming when I joined the Navy at 19, just following in the footsteps of my brother and sister who were already in. After 10 days in the Navy, I knew I was going to get out after my time was up. Also, before I joined up, I had no interest in a college education. After being in 6 months, I knew I had to get more of an education to figure out why things in the world work like they do. After I was discharged, within a couple weeks I was attending peace vigils, the first one being against the creation of the Kings Bay sub base in Georgia.
Why did you join VFP?
As soon as I heard about the group, I sent in my membership immediately. It was one of those "gut" things that I needed to be a part of.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I never considered myself a salesman, so not really all that much. We are, in our Chapter, however, trying to get people who are on our e-mail list and not members, to sign up.
Robert Davis
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
When I retired from my position in the U.S. Department of Labor as Deputy Asst. Secretary for Administration and Management in 1982, I started to become active in the peace movement because I was very concerned about what this country had done in Viet Nam in the '60's and '70's, President Reagan's aggressive stand toward the Soviet Union and also this country's support of the contras in Nicaragua. I joined peace groups and took part in demonstrations advocating peace. I was concerned that this country had become wedded to the use of war as an instrument of national policy and I wanted to do something to show my support for peaceful solutions rather than senseless killing.
Why did you join VFP?
I first learned about VFP from a newspaper or magazine (I don't recall which) article and decided that was a veterans group that I wanted to be a part of. I felt the need to be connected with fellow veterans who shared my abhorrence of war and were willing and anxious to make their voices heard.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I have not been active in recruiting new members. The only activity that has brought me into contact with those who might be recruited as VFP members has been manning a booth at the annual Ann Arbor Art Fair every July. I feel I have not been nearly as aggressive a recruiter as I might be and hope to improve my record in the future.
Dinah Mason
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
My daughter decided to join the US Army in the summer of 2002, halfway between 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq War. I worked very hard to convince her not to join, because I had a sinking feeling that Bush would attack Iraq. My daughter and I are both members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and we realized how few members of that organization participate in the Iraq war but at the same time think that it is a just war. My favorite quotation is" You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake" - Jeannette Rankin
Why did you join VFP?
Wanted to support and volunteer at the Arlington West Memorial, am friends with Steve Shirrell.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
My daughter decided to join after returning from Iraq and getting honorably discharged, her boyfriend also joined our chapter.
George Sossenko
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
Each situation should be treated separately. Before WW ll existed in Germany, Italy and Japan a racist, nationalist and expansionist dictatorial regime. In Europe at that time, the youth (at least those of my age) were concerned about the international situation when Italy (Mussolini) invaded Ethiopia, Germany (Hitler) invaded Poland creating then Concentration Camps, Holocaust, while Japan (Hirohito) invaded China, performing horrendous massacres. The Democracies were scared, opting to maintain the neutrality, or the shamefull (no-intervention). Rossevelt before his death recognized that the biggest blunder of his administration was not to intervene to stop the fascism. While we younger generations were seeing the danger. The WW l forty years old Veterans, still under the effect of the last bloody, cruel and injust war they fought preferred to remain aside of these new events. In the 1930s, we teenagers were more politically mature than them, because we could see that the only solution left was to fight the fascism. We were powerless in our own country, and when in Spain in 1936 the left wing coalition (Republicans, Socialists, Communists and Anarchists) won the ellections, we were overexcited with joy, saying: "The hope is still here, we can win and fight the fascism!" Unfortunately our dream didn't last too long, because Franco who was expatriated in Morocco with his Legionaires, Moores and mercenaries, blessed by the Catholic Church invaded Spain to fight the Republican ellected government. We felt deceived, our dream had been stolen and we couldn't reconcile with it. It was spontaneous, 45, 000 volunteers coming from 54 different cuntries swarmed to defend our ideal, our dream and our hope. I was 16 years old at that time. The World Wide Democracy betrayed us because Franco, helped by the German and Italian armies, defeated the valliant Spanish Republican Forces and the International Brigades.
My father, was very clever and was concerned about this war and mainly because I was about to be drafted into the French Army. To avoid my having to participate one more time in a bloody war we emigrated to Argentina in 1938. My father was right, because in 1939 the WW l l began. Once again I felt that my duty was to keep fighting against the fascism and I volunteered one more time to stop this maddness in which died 56 million people.
Now, how can we compare these colonial adventures whose purpose was to steal minerals or oil from third rate countries living on the other side of the globe, with what we did fighting to stop the fascism which was destroying our style of life to transform us in slaves?
We are initiating now wars for Halliburton, war equipment manufacturers and capitalists. Our soldiers in Korea, Vietnam and now in Iraq were and still are victims of the capitalistic greed. That why I am against these colonial adventures, fought by our young proletarian citizens for the rich corporations, whose children never served in the Army.
Why did you join VFP?
I joined the V.F.P. because I strongly believe that we are commiting a crime against humanity to invade and destroy neutral countries to steal their riches, killing one million of these innocent citizens only for our millionaires in USA.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
Unfortunately I haven't been very successful in recruiting new members for VFP, but with my backgroud as a Presdent of our Chapter 125 I am very active in our organisation to show to the American people that they have been duped and now we are not only losing this criminal war but we risk to lose our country. If USA were attacted I would be the first to fight for our country, but I don't want to go to foreign places to kill innocent people just to make our rich people even richer. I am sorry, angry and irritated to see around me hundred of thousands of our Veterans homeless, cripled and mentally lost.
Ted Sexauer
What moved you from being someone who is willing to wage war to someone who now wages peace?
In the course of four and a half years in the Army I changed direction twice -- from neutral about the Vietnam war but unwilling to fight; to neutral but willing, for reasons of personal ambition and "self-testing"; to being profoundly against the war, committed to fight "in the war against the war" as a medic. Wrong every time. I should have walked away.
Two steps ahead of the draft, I enlisted in 1966 for a four-year hitch, for language school, aiming for Europe. My AIT was nine months of Yugoslav language training. I detested the subservient condition of an enlisted man, so I put in for Officer Candidate School. Having done that, a bunch of childhood baloney came over me and I decided to go Infantry, Airborne, Ranger, "the full catastrophe". I hadn't excelled in sports in high school; consequently, was motivated to distinguish myself in the service, and found I was good at Army games.
Jump school, then OCS. I changed my mind gradually during my time in OCS, as I became aware that I would be no less subservient as a 2LT. I'd had the naïve expectation that the reasons and background for the Vietnam war would be revealed. Not a speck of that; we were trained to receive and implement orders in a completely amoral, unquestioning way. As this was happening, previous awareness of civilian protests, particularly about the toll on the Vietnamese, began to carry more weight with me. Also, I apprehended that the counterculture was having more fun than I was.
I resigned from OCS and resolved to serve as a medic instead. This was a romantic notion I borrowed from Ernest Hemingway, e.e. cummings, and Lou Ayres. Under it all was that old desire to be tested--an excuse to get in on the action and still be "right". I was surprised later to learn that there had been a significant resistance within the Army; I had sympathetic friends, but my course of resistance was without support and on my own.
Through the quirks of Army regs, I was able to go to Special Forces medics' course (told you this was a long story) and then to escape and evade the political darkness of duty with SF. I wound up serving two tours in Vietnam, first with 571st Dust-Off (Helicopter Ambulance), then as senior medic with a line company of the 173d Airborne Brigade. "No-DEROS Alpha"/4/503d.
Because I was proficient and dedicated to my medic's calling, I had the leverage to speak my mind very openly, particularly insisting on humane treatment for the Vietnamese we dealt with. The role of Company Medic was a good one for me--an autonomous leadership position, with incentive for people to want to stay on my good side. The curse was the destruction of personal bonds as friends were killed or med-evaced out week by week. I never lost my will to do the job, but I gradually lost the ability to feel. I was pretty well fried and very well aware I'd pushed my luck to the limit by the time I "came home" in November 1970. I wandered for a year, and then immersed myself in a workaholic demi-existence--took a degree in history at Cal, challenged the LVN exam and worked for eight years in civilian Emergency Rooms.
In 1982, I learned of this thang called PTSD--that there was a discreet explanation for the coping problems, that it wasn't just me. What a revelation! ... For the next eighteen years, my activism consisted of pursuit of healing for myself and advocacy for PTSD awareness.
Why did you join VFP?
I'd like to identify five people who played a role in my awakening to direct action peace activism and involvement with VFP.
In April 1980, I heard Charlie Liteky speak at a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. He spoke about the U.S.'s continuing war against the poor, in Latin America, through the School of the Americas. That November, I went to my first SOAW event at Fort Benning--on board Fredy Champagne's big blue bus. The bus fare was $100, learn to drive the bus, and a requirement to join VFP.
Back home again, I began attending Bay Area Chapter 69 meetings. I had known Paul Cox and others there since before Veterans Speakers Alliance had become Chapter 69. In my own Sonoma County, an hour north of San Francisco, Sharon Kufeldt revived the dormant Chapter 71. For a time, I was a dual member of Chapters 69 and 71. Then Ed Flowers talked me into standing in as Chapter vice president (and then charged me $20 chapter dues). A couple of years later Ed and I agreed to serve as co-presidents. Ed does the real chapter business and I go around and agitate.
What have been your successes in recruiting new members to VFP?
I believe in the personal. I just talk to people. I try to be visible in VFP togs most everywhere I go, and carry membership forms and business cards. In all the public things I do, from poetry readings to Buddhist community activities to vigiling with my local Peace & Justice group, I try to be a bridge person--not only to recruit for VFP but to inspire allies and foster communication and ideals of nonviolence... I speak to the city council and on the radio in my small town, especially these days about the needs of returning vets.
An incident around our big county parade last year got us a lot of publicity and a number of new members and allies. In our area, we are the mainstream. When the right-wing groups tried to block us from the parade, we arranged a compromise that made us appear the reasonable ones. In that way, we increased our visibility in a positive way and helped the inactive middle see our position on foreign policy in a way they can identify with.