2027 Board Candidates

Ken Tran
Garden Grove, CA - Hoa Binh Vietnam Chapter- 160 & Los Angeles CA Chapter 007
Air Force (2001-2021)
Member since:  Mar 14, 2025

Kenneth Dean Tran is a U.S. Air Force veteran, artist, producer, and veteran advocate. He currently serves in leadership with Veterans For Peace chapter 160, and has worked across media, entertainment, live events, and creative projects focused on veterans, culture, and public engagement. His work often centers on storytelling, community building, and creating platforms that help underrepresented voices reach broader audiences.

As a veteran, artist, media professional, and current VFP leader, I hope to bring a perspective focused on communication, public engagement, and finding new ways to connect VFP’s mission with veterans and the broader public. My experience in media, entertainment, storytelling, event production, and veteran advocacy has taught me how important clear and compelling communication is to building support for an organization and reaching new audiences.

I am especially interested in supporting VFP’s communications efforts. Among the standing committees listed, I would be most interested in Communications Committee / Strategic Planning, where I believe I could contribute ideas on messaging, outreach, media strategy, and expanding VFP’s visibility and engagement.

Dave Logsdon

VFP Chapter 027 - Minneapolis MN
Branch of service: Navy
Member since: Jan, 2018
Current board position: None

81 year-old retired Teamster. Lifetime member of VFP, attend 175 actions a year, successful fundraiser, Chapter President for 12 years, served on the VFP Board, as membership chair person, Vice-President of the National Board.

I have served on the convention committee and will continue with that whether I win or not. I am on the membership committee and will continue whether I am voted on the Board or not. Leveraging our wonderful statement of purpose and logo is something I have done locally in the Twin Cities and, hopefully, as a Board member. I offer the enthusiasmof a young pup and the experience of old dog. A winning combination?

Joy Metzler
Lifetime Veteran Member
Atlanta GA Chapter 125
Member Since:  Aug 17, 2014

My name is Joy Metzler. I left the Air Force in 2024 with the full and gracious support of Veterans For Peace, and I have continued my advocacy for marginalized communities and against US imperialism abroad. My first big action was the 40 day fast for Gaza, sponsored by VFP and FOSNA, and I have participated in multiple events of civil disobedience - both with Veterans For Peace and in coalition with other groups. I am active within my community, to include co-chairing my local DSA chapter and being a significant part of the campaign to bring Mohammed Ibrahim home, who was a US citizen unjustly imprisoned in Israel for 8 months. I am pleased to be in a veterinary technician program, and I hope to bring environmental justice to the forefront of our work as well.

Veterans For Peace stands at a significant crossroads, where we are seeing the same excuses recycled in new conflicts. We have the opportunity to bring true and lasting peace to the US and abroad, but we need to take the lessons we learned from Vietnam on and adjust to the ever changing times. I have the experience of being close to the military and having fresh, new ideas, but I am also willing to sit and learn from older members of VFP. I am excited to work together to start getting out there, being visible, and reaching out to active duty members.

I would like to join the strategic planning committee most, but I also value transformative justice to start bringing VFP into more justice-based peace activism.

Larry Liu

VFP Chapter 021 - Northern NJ

Branch of service: Army
Member since: 2001-2021
Current board position: None

I have been a political activist since I was 15 starting with occupy wallstreet and opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I served from 2018 to 2026 and am now the most active member of chapter 021, frequently attending meetings and vigils at Delaney Hall in Newark, and continuing to organize to raise awareness about Gaza. 

I hope to bring a fresh new perspective to VFP, and to encourage members to participate more in grassroots movements in their local area and to aggressively recruit new members into VFP. 

Karissa May

VFP San Diego Chapter 91

Member since:  Jan, 2024

Karisa May is a Marine Corps Reserve (enlisted) veteran, having served with the 4th Medical Battalion, NMRTC, NAS Miramar, San Diego. Karisa has been an active member of San Diego Veterans For Peace, serving as secretary on the executive committee since 2024. She has represented SDVFP at city council meetings, Save our VA, Cancel RIMPAC, CLERB (Citizens' Law Enforcement Review Board), and has met with San Diego's Representative staffer regarding Palestine, divestment, and militarism. Karisa earned an undergraduate degree from UC San Diego and a Master's degree from Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a full-time middle school teacher, a retired Nazarene minister, and a coach for a flat-track roller derby league.

Besides SDVFP, I have served on executive boards of the Oceanside Swim Club, Hidden City Roller Derby, and Skate Park Respect. I have been COO of Hidden City Roller Derby for seven years and secretary of SDVFP for three years. In each context, I have been firmly committed to abiding by governing documents that protect the missional interests of each organization and their non-profit status. At the same time, I have worked to create systems and documents which clarify and streamline procedures and increase transparency. In my future with VFP, I am most concerned about intractable and illegal wars, hyper-militarism in the public sphere, and combating predatory recruitment of underserved and at-risk youth. I am interested in serving on a committee for transformative justice.

 

Olga Garcia

 

I served in the United States Air Force as a colorectal and general surgeon 2021-2025 and deploying to Jordan on a mobile surgical team in October 2023 where I performed humanitarian work to "win hearts and minds", prepared the base for and responded to two mass casualty events, which were part of my journey to anti-war activism. Since separating from the military I have been involved in activism primarily with Veterans for Peace, organizing at the national level and re-establishing the Las Vegas chapter. In September 2025 I ran the Air Force marathon calling for "no more wars” with the VFP flag and collaborating with the Columbus chapter for a protest outside the events. I have been teaching Stop the Bleed and am interested in continuing anti-war activism and humanitarian work as well as participating in medical equity advocacy. 

I would be interested in participating in membership, TJ, and strategic planning committees. As a new organizer and activist and co-founder of a new chapter I would love to connect new chapter founders with one another as well as to more established chapter leaders to set them up for success. With respect to TJ I am interested in non-punitive ways of navigating conflicts as these are inevitable. I believe I can be diplomatic and objective. And lastly, I think it’s critically important for VFP to better reach younger veterans through social media strategy and give them a sense of community and the organization a meaningful direction.

Phillip Martin

 

 

Phillip Martin served twenty years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, culminating as superintendent of a 200-member joint organization staffed by six federal agencies. Since leaving active duty in 2023 he has worked with veterans at the other end of the pipeline: as the veterans peer counselor at The Evergreen State College's Veterans Resource Center, and as an associate navigator at the campus Basic Needs Center, doing one-on-one case management across food, housing, benefits, and crisis support. He is the administrative manager at the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice in Olympia, Washington, where he runs day-to-day operations, the financial records, and the volunteer program. He is a member of VFP Chapter 109 in Olympia and an applicant to the Thurston County Veterans Advisory Board. He lives in Olympia and is finishing his degree at Evergreen.

Twenty years of experience is not a qualification by itself. Anyone can accumulate experience by standing in the room; the question is what you do with it. If the outcomes we are getting now were good enough, we would not be having this conversation.

What I am comfortable with — exceedingly comfortable — is walking into a room and putting the hard thing on the table. That comes from twenty years in the federal government, where the work was abstract, high-consequence, and often politically awkward, and where the job was to name it, get it onto the agenda, and work it through with people who did not all agree. I do not need a warm-up period. I am comfortable operating at that altitude on day one.

I understand the weight of a board seat. I also understand that much of what a board is expected to do is written down nowhere and is not evenly understood inside the organization itself. That is worth saying out loud, because open dialogue is the only mechanism we have for making progress on it.

The rest is operational, and it is real. I finished my service as superintendent of a 200-member joint organization drawn from six federal agencies. At the Rachel Corrie Foundation I built the volunteer program from nothing — 49 tasks across nine functional areas, five position descriptions, a three-tier proficiency framework — so that a person who volunteers gets real work, a named point of contact, and somewhere to go next.

Building upward from the individual associate member through the chapters matters. So does the board being bold enough to operate at the altitude the membership needs it to: reaching across to mission partners already aligned with us, building bridges that do not exist yet, and engaging directly with members, with chapters, and with legislators.

When I ran for vice president of external affairs at The Evergreen State College, I said I would be a tenacious ally for students, faculty, staff, and the wider Evergreen community, because all of it was my constituency and not only the people who selected me. I meant it, and I pushed hard. What I took from that year was how to have these conversations in a way that moves people rather than exhausting them, and me. That work is not finished. I would welcome a seat where it continues, for me and for the people around me.

I am interested in the strategic planning committee.

Vince Dijanich

 

I served in the US Army during the Vietnam war; I was in the infantry. For many reasons I needed to get out of town so I wound up volunteering for the draft since the Marines wouldn’t take me due trouble I got into in high school. I served with the 101st Airborne division. I was assigned to an infantry battalion, first in a recon platoon, then a rifle company and finally a mortar platoon. They liked to move malcontents around. Within the first three months I became disillusioned with the whole thing. I found I had more in common with the Vietnamese than with other Americans. Upon my discharge I helped found a local chapter of Viet Nam Veterans Against the War in Sacramento California. I was also a member of the San Jose Chapter and the San Francisco Chapter Bay Chapter until I left in 1976 over political differences with the national leadership.

After that Ifor a few years I worked with a revolutionary organization called Prairie Fire Organizing Committee until I realized I had strategic and tactical differences with them.
I then hooked up with James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs and their organization. I still consider Jimmy and Grace to be mentors and dearly beloved deceased comrades. The Organization fell apart in 1987. Their Legacy is still alive in the James and Grace Lee Boggs center based in Detroit.

The Boggs organization had philosophy of “Change Yourself to Change the World” which has many similarities to the current “Be the Change” perspective. This important because at that time I joined Veterans Speakers Alliance, a precursor organization to VFP chapter 69 in San Francisco. I only stayed a brief time because the their didn’t seem to be any ‘change yourself to change the world” in VSA. My leaving was a mistake because I was relying on my feelings rather than my thinking and my PTSD made it difficult to be with other veterans. I have moved since then.
What has helped me move and change the most is a peer counseling process and community called Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC). I have been at it since the latter part of 1982. One thing we are clear on is that “feelings are not a guide t o action”. One needs to be able to process and release emotions to get to clear thinking. I am committed to always using my best thinking. Now to be fair I don’t always succeed but I always make the effort.

Another practice that is being very helpful is Transcendental Meditation (TM). I started TM in college and was in and out of it for decades. I have been consistent with my practice, twice daily, since the beginning of 2019. It really takes the edge off and helps me stay in my thinking.
I stopped being an activist and organizer in 1988 because I realized that I needed to heal and being in the movement was a hindrance rather than a help. Things would only get worse for me if I stayed. I spent many years just working peripherally on various struggles in the world.

In 2018 I started working in VFP again. The RC leader responsible for thinking about political activists says if you are going to work in an organization you must make a long term commitment. I still have two years to go on my ten-year commitment to VFP. At that time I will recommit or move on. My thinking now is that I will most likely recommit for another ten years.

I have good interpersonal skills and a commitment to passing on my knowledge to the next generation. I am interested in joining the transformative justice committee and the strategic planning committee

Louis Flores

 

● Born in San Francisco in 1958 from parents that were born in Mexico and raised by a single mother.
● Upon graduation from high school in 1976 joined the Marine Corps Reserves
○ Jet mechanic on A4 Skyhawks.
○ Stationed in Alameda NAS
● Earned a BA in History from San Francisco State University
● Worked as a gym director, athletic director, basketball coach, and referee at Mission Dolores gym.
○ Also a board member on the CYO board
● Case Manager and Trainer with SF Community Boards organization. Organized neighborhood conflict resolution meetings and trained volunteers in mediation skills.
● Work supervisor with the San Francisco Conservation Corps. Trained and supervised at risk young adults in basic job skills. Supported them in getting their GED. Primarily worked in the Presidio of San Francisco.
● Earned a Special Education Teaching Credential from the State of California through Project Pipeline..
● Special Education teacher for 25 years in public schools. Worked with students diagnosed with mild/moderate learning disabilities. Retired in 2023.
○ Union representative of our school union employees.
● Upon retiring joined volunteer organizations:
○ Active member with VFP SF Chapter 69.
○ Board member on the VFP Vietnam Chapter 160.
○ A commissioner on the Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Commission.
○ Active member with 350 Contra Costa Action. We focus on working with advocating for climate related legislation within the California Assembly and Senate. In addition, we work with local city councils and communities.
○ Active member with CACTI (Communities Against Carbon Transport & Capture). Currently we are working on educating the Contra Costa County community and legislators on reasons to oppose a proposed carbon capture and sequestration project.
○ Active member with the California State Parks Foundation. Volunteer and Core Leader. We work with park rangers in maintaining state parks.

In my above bio one can see that I’ve had a lot of experience working with people in numerous capacities. I have come to realize (through the school of hard knocks) that it is not about the achievement of a goal, which can be elusive, but rather in focusing on the journey. I now find myself living during a time of poly crisis where it can feel overwhelming and depressing. I am trying to take one step at a time while trying to respect people and the environment. I sincerely do not feel that I can offer magical solutions but I can promise to try to listen and also to try to express my opinion. Another thing that I feel that I’ve learned is that we only have any hope of solving anything by working together. Our current societal and environmental problems will not be solved by one person but rather by truly uniting people with care and understanding. One step at a time, one day at a time.

The strategic planning committee sounds interesting.

Paula Staff

VFP Chapter 027 - Minneapolis MN

Branch of service: None
Lifetime Associate Member
Current board position: None

Introduced to the local and national VFP by my husband, a Marine Combat Correspondent in Vietnam (1968-1969).  We were also privileged to participate in Chapter 160 tour of Vietnam in 2014 to learn more about unexploded ordnance and agent orange impact.  Cultural and Historical information and places were also included in the tour. Since our marriage in 2000, we have attended most of the national conventions. We have been active members of Chapter 27 and my contribution has been as a member of the newsletter staff.  

My past history as a psychologist gifted me with the opportunity to listen to people of all ages, backgrounds and experiences as part of their path to greater healing. My work prior to retirement involved veterans who struggled with mental health and addiction accompanied by a recent experience of homelessness.

So, briefly I listen without quick judgement and seek clarification for what I don’t yet understand throughly. Participating within a community of people aiming for a beneficial purpose is I have learned in my past work, Chapter 27 newsletter team and also as a longtime member of Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom.

The two committees that stand out for me are member and chapter support and transformative justice.