Our We Are Not Your Soldiers project is back in the schools. Compared to previous years, we got off to a late start due to the changes caused in education by the Covid 19 pandemic. And, it is a different experience doing all our visits remotely, even those right here in NYC where we’re based […]
From The New Press I Ain’t Marching Anymore Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America’s Wars By Chris Lombardi A sweeping history of the passionate men and women in uniform who have bravely and courageously exercised the power of dissent “I am here as a citizen. I want the Congress to understand that as a citizen […]
In this video, Shiloh reflects on their experiences in the Marines. This video is part of a package for teachers, including several other videos as well as lesson plans. Check it all out here at BeforeEnlisting.org.
Contáctanos – wearenotyoursoldiers@worldcantwait.net 347-581-2677 – para que podamos hacer una visita a su salón de clases, sin importar en dónde esté. En We Are Not Your Soldiers estamos nuevamente listos para trabajar con los educadores para presentar veteranos y sus historias del tiempo que pasaron en el ejército estadounidense a sus estudiantes para dialogar con […]
Watch this discussion with four veterans who have personal experience with hybrid warfare.
From Refuser Solidarity Network | Original Article Hello, my name is Hallel Rabin. I’m an 18 years old refuser from an Israeli kibbutz and tomorrow I’ll be sent to prison by the Israeli military. Just before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I refused to join the Israeli army and was held in military prison […]
By Samantha Grasso From Discourse Blog | Original Article How an old MTV reality show opened my eyes about the military’s iron grip on our culture. We all have our favorite “grownup” TV shows we remember watching as kids, feeling extremely Cool and Adult to be privy to the kind of content clearly marketed to […]
Contact us – wearenotyoursoldiers@worldcantwait.net 347-581-2677 – us so we can set up a visit to your class no matter where located. We Are Not Your Soldiers is ready once again to work with educators to present veterans and their stories of time spent in the U.S. military to your students and to dialogue with those […]
By Shane Harris From The Washington Post | Original Article A group of lawyers is offering advice to military and National Guard members who worry they may be given unlawful orders if deployed during protests or disputes over next month’s elections. The Orders Project was formed in response to the use of force against protesters […]
From Democracy Now | Original Article As the United States marks 19 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a new report finds at least 37 million people in eight countries have been displaced since the start of the so-called global war on terrorism since 2001. The Costs of War […]
From Refuser Solidarity Network Everyone is talking about Israel’s “new peace,” and the White House is taking credit for delaying the “annexation” of Palestinian land. On the ground in the West Bank it feels almost like an illusion: the daily annexation, occupation and military violence never stopped. My name is Eden, and in 2014 I […]
By Missy Ryan From The Washington Post | Original Article The U.S. military has made about $2 million in condolence payments to civilians in Afghanistan over the past five years, according to Pentagon data that sheds new light on how officials have sought to address the impact of unintended injury and death in America’s longest war. […]
By John Laforge From Counterpunch | Original Article With this week’s commemorations of the US atomic massacres at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there will be countless hours spent on speeches, sermons, hymns, and warnings; tons of ink spilled in op/eds, editorials and articles. All will solemnly promote the need to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. […]
Traducido del inglés por El Mundo no Puede Esperar La gran rebelión hacia la supremacía blanca de gente de todo el país y la terrible respuesta de los fascistas en la Casa Blanca, ha abierto el discurso acerca del rol doméstico del ejército. Esto da a We Are Not Your Soldiers (No Somos Tus Soldados) […]
From World Can’t Wait | Original Article In an ominous escalation of fascism, the Trump/Pence regime sent federal agents from multiple agencies to storm the streets of Portland, Oregon and crush ongoing protests. Trump is now deploying them to positions across the country, targeting those who dare to defy this regime and Democratic-run cities with […]
By Matthew Hoh From Counterpunch | Original Article I was born near New York City in 1973, the year the United States officially ended its war in Vietnam and brought home the last of its combat troops. The Vietnam War, known to the Vietnamese as The American War, was always something removed from me, even […]
From Refuser Solildarity Network My name is Yasmin Ricci-Yahav, I am 18 years old. In August 2019 I publicly refused to join the Israeli army, refused to serve the Israeli occupation. I took this picture outside the Israeli military induction base, just before I was imprisoned. Being a conscientious objector was hard -I was locked […]
By Danny Sjursen From TomDispatch | Original Article It was June 20th and we antiwar vets had traveled all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the midst of a pandemic to protest President Trump’s latest folly, an election 2020 rally where he was to parade his goods and pretend all was well with this country. […]
By Rev. Dr. William Barber II and Phyllis Bennis From InsideSources | Original Article Uniformed U.S. soldiers occupied the center of the city, where an armored personnel carrier was stationed at a major intersection. Was it Kabul or Atlanta? A U.S. military helicopter hovered over crowds of unarmed civilians, its down-drafts whipping debris and broken glass into […]
From Democracy Now | Original Article The U.S. Army says it has a suspect in custody in connection with the disappearance of Vanessa Guillén, a missing 20-year-old Fort Hood soldier whose family says her remains were likely found in a shallow grave near the Texas Army base. A second suspect in the case — a […]
The great uprising against white supremacy of people all over the country and the horrific response of the fascists in the White House, has opened discourse about the domestic role of the military. This gives We Are Not Your Soldiers the opportunity to broaden and deepen that thinking and take it to an understanding of […]
By Marc Eliot Stein From World Beyond War | Original Article “That’s when I saw this whole thing as a charade. I knew it was wrong.” I’ve been wanting to interview Miles Megaciph for the World BEYOND War podcast since hearing him perform at our #NoToNATO event in Washington DC in April 2019. His set […]
By Andrea Mazzarino From TomDispatch | Original Article A Military Spouse’s Perspective on Racism and Armed Violence in the United States Recently, in this Black Lives Matter protest moment, my five-year-old son looked at me and asked, “Mommy, where did all the brown people go? Did the police here shoot them?” We’d just moved to […]
By Jonah Walters From The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) Military recruiters understand that widespread joblessness is good for enlistment. They celebrate the arrival of “Sergeant Hard Times,” recognizing that misery is the best motivator. The coronavirus crisis has been a double-edged sword for military recruitment in the United States. On the […]
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies From Common Dreams | Original Article For too long, we have let cynical politicians and business leaders divide and rule us, funding police and the Pentagon over real human needs, pitting us against each other at home and leading us off to wars against our neighbors abroad. On […]
New video just out by Miles Megaciph. Written by: Miles Megaciph Produced by: Steve Wallace All Rights Reserved 2020 Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/megaciph/no-fe… The disregard of Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor lives must stop now. The world has risen up to see the plight of the Black American, the struggle of the stolen Africans still living, […]
From Courage to Resist | Original Article Courage to Resist is currently assisting members of the National Guard who resisted Trump’s orders to violently attack people on the streets of Washington DC peacefully and lawfully protesting racial injustice. Now that Trump is threatening to use the 1807 Insurrection Act to send active-duty troops in cities […]
From About Face An Open Letter from Veterans to Recently Activated National Guard Troops Attention Members of the National Guard, We write you as fellow veterans and service members with full knowledge of what’s at stake as many of you are being asked to mobilize against civilians in your own country. As your neighbors fill […]
From Veterans for Peace Veterans For Peace calls for the immediate withdrawal of the Minnesota National Guard. We are appalled to see military weapons, vehicles and equipment once again deployed in U.S. cities to control community members who are reacting to a long history of state-sanctioned violence. When an already embattled community is subjected to […]
By Mike Hastie, Army Medic Viet Nam Recently I came across an old picture of me when I was in kindergarten. I think it was the first day of school, as my father took the picture in 1950. We were living at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as my father was a career Army officer and combat […]
From Revolution | Original Article The New York Times published an editorial yesterday, Sunday, May 24, with the title “Why Does the U.S. Military Celebrate White Supremacy?”1 The editorial questions, exposes and condemns the long-standing naming of U.S. military bases with names and figures drawn from the white-supremacist slave-upholding Confederacy, including some of the largest and most “storied” […]
Please read this letter received May 22, 2020 from Rev. Shawna Foster, IVAW/About Face Member since 2006 and then visit the beautiful memorial website. Two days of the year are very difficult for me: Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. Like many military-connected families and communities, I feel the pain of regret and loss about the […]
On the show, On Contact, Chris Hedges talks to Matthew Hoh, former U.S. Marine Company Commander, about the high rates of veteran suicides. Hoh served two tours in Iraq as a Marine and with the State Department. He resigned his position as a State Department political officer in Afghanistan in 2009 in protest over the […]
By Tara Copp From McClatchy | Original Article Watch video here. Military recruiters are relying on video games like “Call of Duty” and other online outreach to encourage young men and women to enlist during the coronavirus outbreak that has sharply curtailed more traditional recruiting efforts. May and June usually kick off the busy summer […]
By Erik Edstrom From TomDispatch | Original Article “Every day is a copy of a copy of a copy.” That meme, from the moment when Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club offers a 1,000-yard stare at an office copy machine, captures this moment perfectly — at least for those of us removed from the front […]
By David Swanson From World Beyond War | Original Article A new collection of maps found here displays what militarism looks like in the world. Here’s a brief guide to using and understanding them. Across the top are 10 drop-down menus on these topics: Wars, Weapons, U.S. Weapons, Money, Nukes, Chemical and Biological, U.S. Military, […]
Weeks of visits to schools and colleges by We Are Not Your Soldiers volunteers have, of course, been canceled for this spring. But using the digital tools of the class room, we recently remotely visited three college social psychology classes in North Carolina. We connected Lyle Rubin’s presentation to the classes’ study of both the Stanford prison experiment and […]
From Center on National Security at Fordham Law The U.S. Navy announced Thursday that it had relieved Capt. Brett Crozier, who commands the USS Roosevelt, after he sounded the alarm about an outbreak of COVID-19 aboard the ship earlier this week. Capt. Crozier had written a four-page letter urging his superiors to allow him to […]
This features Braden Chapman, a courageous Australian ex-special forces member, testifying about the war crimes committed by some of his colleagues, which he witnessed when serving in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. The contents can be assumed to apply to all or most ‘coalition’ forces, not just Australians, in Afghanistan and no doubt also in Iraq and any other country at […]
From World Can’t Wait | Original Article During this pandemic, we call on you to engage in physical distancing with the aim of social solidarity. We choose to say it this way, rather than “social distancing,” because this is what we believe is a crucial concept to live by. Today is the 17th anniversary of […]
This week we were still able to visit several New York City schools – from a middle school class doing a study of the war in Afghanistan to an alternative high school to college philosophy classes – where Lyle Rubin, Marine veteran who had been deployed to Afghanistan, engaged in discussion with students. Here are […]
We Are Not Your Soldiers has been visiting Philadelphia schools, speaking in January and February at four Philadelphia high schools and a college class. Will Griffin, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, presented. Three of the most surprising points for the students in the presentations were that the United States is currently involved in […]
From National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth | Original Article WHAT IS IT? The Joint Advertising Market Research Studies (JAMRS) is a series of projects that seek to collect and buy information about the American public with the intent of formulating marketing and advertising strategies to aid in the military recruitment effort. It is in the service of the […]
Introduction by Mike Hastie, Army Medic Viet Nam (2/18/20) I just got through listening to Dennis Stout’ podcast. Without a doubt, this is one of the most powerful eyewitness stories of the Viet Nam War. You hang on every word, because the truth demands it of you. There is no rest for the messenger until […]
The prosecution of drone whistleblower Daniel Hale is currently scheduled to proceed in March. A former veteran of the drone assassination program who became an outspoken activist and critic of it, Hale is being prosecuted under the draconian Espionage Act because he dared shine a light into a very dark corner. Hundreds of journalists, whistleblowers, […]
By Kevin Hitt From The ESports Observer | Original Article The United States Navy has divested from television advertising and will see 97% of its budget allocated to digital. Esports and YouTube will be the two main focuses of its advertising dollars. The reason for the course correction is that the age demographic of online […]
By Nick Martin From The New Republic | Original Article As the United States staggers toward war, it will try to draw troops from the same poor, rural neighborhoods it always has. In my high school in rural North Carolina, a plastic table was set up just off to the side of the atrium where we all congregated […]
By Graig Graziosi From Yahoo News | Original Article A former US drone operator is speaking out against the atrocities he says he was forced to inflict during his time in the armed forces and says the American military as ‘worse than the Nazis’. Brandon Bryant was enlisted in the US Air Force for six […]
By Alan Mcleod From MintPress News | Original Article The United States Air Force has a new recruitment tool: a realistic drone operator video game you can play on its website. Called the Airman Challenge, it features 16 missions to complete, interspersed with facts and recruitment information about how to become a drone operator yourself. In […]
We Are Not Your Soldiers brings veterans to visit classes, share their experiences and enter into dialogue with the students. They tell their own personal stories of how they were affected by their time in the military, bringing another vision of these wars in which so many have been sacrificed by losing their lives and/or […]
by Anthony Swofford From MIT Technology Review | Original Article Technology makes fighting war easier and more palatable—but it dangerously changes the nature of the fight, argues a US Marine veteran. Shortly after I turned 18, the United States Marine Corps trained me to live, think, and operate as one of the most lethal humans […]
By Tim O’Connor From Newsweek | Original Article The United States has tens of thousands of troops deployed across the Middle East and Afghanistan, many of them in nations near Iran at a time when the two countries were nearing an all-out conflict. President Donald Trump’s decision to kill one of Iran’s most senior figures, […]
From Democracy Now | Original Article The New York Times has revealed a trove of confidential military interviews with the Navy SEALs who accused Chief Edward Gallagher of war crimes. Gallagher met with President Trump over the weekend at Trump’s private resort Mar-a-Lago in Florida, only weeks after Trump overruled his own military leaders and […]
By Stephanie Rugoff and Debra Sweet In the blizzard of outrageous new actions and threats from the current commander in chief, many people heard about “The Afghanistan Papers,” the Washington Post series last week on the U.S. war on Afghanistan. After three years of lawsuits, the Post obtained partial transcripts of interviews with 400 people […]
Will Griffin describes the presentation he gave when he spent a week in New York City visiting high schools and colleges with the We Are Not Your Soldiers project. Let us know if you’d like us to visit your school.
On Veterans Day, Common Dreams ran the article below about our We Are Not Your Soldiers project. We are pleased that the article drew attention to our project including some leads to expanding our work digitally around the country. Also on Veterans Day, the online edition of The New York Times ran the video and […]
By Andrea Mazzarino From TomDispatch | Original Article On Being a Military Spouse and Writing About Our Post-9/11 Wars There is some incongruity between my role as an editor of a book about the costs of America’s wars and my identity as a military spouse. I’m deeply disturbed at the scale of human suffering caused […]
By Samuel Osborne From Yahoo News | Original Article Donald Trump has reportedly told aides he wants three convicted or accused war criminals to campaign for him during his bid for reelection in 2020. The US president granted clemency to Clint Lorance and Matthew Golsteyn, and reversed the decision to demote Edward Gallagher on 15 […]
By Matthew Hoh From Common Dreams | Original Article The only way to prevent veterans from killing themselves is to prevent them from going to war. I was very pleased to see the New York Times editorial on November 1, 2019, Suicide Has Been Deadlier than Combat for the Military. As a combat veteran myself […]
By Robert Scheer From Truthdig | Original Article American soldiers born decades apart in the state of New York, Ron Kovic and Maj. Danny Sjursen, are two crucial dissenting voices that have experienced firsthand the futility and brutality of America’s interventionist wars. Kovic, a Marine veteran who was paralyzed in the Vietnam War, has spent […]
By Stephanie Rugoff From Common Dreams | Original Article We Are Not Your Soldiers brings exposure of imperial wars to a generation of youth largely unaware of the crimes being carried out throughout the world in their names. On this Veterans Day, 2019, for the United States, making war is less about amassing human air, […]
By Nick Turse From The Nation | Original Article They called it Castle Black, an obvious homage to the famed, frozen citadel from the HBO series Game of Thrones. In the fantasy world of GoT, it’s the stronghold of the Night’s Watch, the French Foreign Legion–esque guardians of the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. […]
By Debra Sweet While the evidence piles up that Trump worked to bring down Joe Biden via U.S. foreign policy and obstructed the Congressional investigation, the Democrats say they intend to keep the impeachment inquiry limited to these narrow grounds of “endangering national security” and possibly obstruction as well as bribery. They are not investigating […]
By Lyle Jeremy Rubin, Donald White, Arti Walker-Peddakotla, Danny Sjursen and Daniel L. Davis From The New York Times | Original Article Video by Mark Hannah and Eric Felipe-Barkin Their harrowing stories from the battlefield shed light on what they see as an unwinnable conflict in a foreign land. There is, these veterans say, no point in continuing an 18-year war […]
Starting on Veterans Day November 11 and continuing through November 15, 2019, come to this series of events in Washington DC. Find full information here.
By Carol Dudek From The World Cant Wait | Original Article I had the privilege of talking with two Veterans For Peace who are being detained in Ireland because of their antiwar actions there. Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers are U.S. military veterans who went to Ireland with a delegation to join Veterans For Peace […]
Political rapper Megaciph drops his new music video, “Attention,” directed by Chris Smiley of The Peace Report. Check out more of Megaciph, a We Are Not Your Soldiers Speaker. h
From Refuser Solidarity Network| Original Article A quick update to let you know that conscientious objector Yasmin Ricci-Yahav arrived last Monday at Israeli Army’s Tel Hashomer induction center and announced for the third time her refusal to enlist. Upon her imprisonment, she said: “My name is Yasmin Ricci Yahav, I am 18 years old, and […]
We are now scheduling visits for our We Are Not Your Soldiers tour to high schools and colleges for the Fall 2019 semester. Invite us to your school or educational program. If you are not a student, parent or educator, pass this information on to someone who is. Call us at 646-807-3259 or email wearenotyoursoldiers@worldcantwait.net. […]
By Alex N. Press From Jacobin | Original Article I n a high school classroom on the South Side of Chicago, Rory Fanning is telling students about the time he and his fellow Army Rangers occupied a school in Afghanistan. “We walked in and said, ‘School’s canceled, we’re going to use this as a military […]
By Roy Eidelson From Counterpunch | Original Article It has now been four years since the “Hoffman Report” presented extensive evidence of secret collaboration between leaders of the American Psychological Association (APA) and psychologists working for the Department of Defense (DOD). According to that independent review, the goal of collaboration was to ensure that APA […]
Listen here. “Deep Water”, a musical tribute to VFP activist, Al Glatkowski and his anti-war efforts during the Vietnam War, is written by Joe DeFilippo and performed by the R.J. Phillips Band, a group of Baltimore musicians. Joe DeFilippo: vocals, bass, acoustic guitar ; Bill Phelan: electric guitar ; Patrick McAvinue: fiddle; Leslie Darr: background […]
Although this video is from 2007, it has a lot of very interesting information relevant to today.
By Steve Early From BeyondChron | Original Article Fifty years ago this fall, a campus upsurge turned opposition to the Vietnam War into a genuine mass movement. On October 15, 1969, several million students, along with community-based activists, participated in anti-war events under the banner of the “Vietnam Moratorium.” A month later, 500,000 people came […]
Three articles related to the case: the first on Trump stripping medals from the prosecutors, the second two on Republican congressman who says he probably killed hundreds of civilians. Navy SEAL prosecutors to be stripped of achievement medals By Jill Colvin From AP | Original Article In this July 2, 2019, file photo, Navy Special […]
From The Boys Who Said No | Original Article Dear Friends and Supporters of The Boys Who Said NO! It is with great sorrow that we write to let you know that the initiator and producer of our film, Christopher Colorado Jones, died on June 29 from a head injury suffered the night before. He […]
By Jasper Craven From The Intercept | Original Article Derrick Hathaway served multiple tours in Kosovo, contributing to a NATO peacekeeping mission aimed at preventing ethnic cleansing. While Hathaway envisioned his Marine mission as a humanitarian one, he soon became ashamed of his work. In the course of mapping safe routes for NATO forces, Hathaway’s […]
By Martin Smith From Counterpunch | Original Article I will never forget standing in formation after the end of our final “hump,” marine-speak for a forced march, at the end of the Crucible in March, 1997. The Crucible is the final challenge during Marine Corps boot camp and is a two-and-a-half day, physically exhausting exercise […]
Should another generation of youth living here be sucked into war for empire, the way two million+ have sacrificed their humanity and lives in the so-called “war on terror?” We say no, and are actively working to present what the recruiters for the U.S. armed forces won’t ever say. Should another generation of youth in […]
By Shawek Blich From Dissent | Original Article Read this interview in Polish here. What do the crimes of a Navy SEAL tell us about U.S. military culture? In early May 2017, Navy SEALs Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher allegedly murdered a fifteen-year-old ISIS fighter receiving medical assistance for non-fatal wounds in Iraq. Witnesses watched […]
From Courage to Resist | Original Article Daniel Hale, an Air Force veteran and former U.S. intelligence analyst turned anti-war activist was arrested May 9th and charged with violating the Espionage Act. Daniel is a well-known anti-drone activist who has spoken out a number of anti-war events and conferences. He is also featured in the […]
By Seth Kershner From NNOMY.net | Original Article Over the past several years, activists have fought against the use of unmanned aircraft (commonly called “drones”) to carry out targeted killings in the war on terror. Anti-drone activists have aimed their protests at a number of different targets. They have condemned university research on drone technology […]
By Seth Kershner From NNOMY.net | Original Article Although women make up about half of the United States workforce, they represent just 24 percent of careers in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In order to correct this, major nonprofit groups have been organizing STEM enrichment camps for middle- and high-school girls, driven by […]
By Seth Kershner From Occupy.com | Original Article As a journalist and researcher, I’ve spent the last several years investigating the expanding network of links between public education and the U.S. military. With my colleague Scott Harding, I’ve also been researching the grassroots response to this phenomenon: the counter-recruitment movement. Activists along with outspoken scholars […]
A group of seven U.S. Veterans for Peace took part in a protest against the US Military Base at Shannon Airport on Sunday March 17. Why? Shannon is used for refueling U.S. troop planes bound for Middle East wars. Two US veterans were arrested at Shannon Airport on 17 March for entering the airfield to […]
By Rory Fanning From TomDispatch | Original Article Hilel Garmi’s phone is going straight to voicemail and all I’m hoping is that he’s not back in prison. I’ll soon learn that he is. Prison 6 is a military prison. It’s situated in the Israeli coastal town of Atlit, a short walk from the Mediterranean Sea […]
The American Friends Service Committee, National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY), About Face: Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out, the Coalition for Peace Action and other groups worked with the producers to develop the program. This film is being continuously updated, so contact info@beforeyouenlist.org for the latest […]
“The real deal on joining the military, as told by veterans … and what the military recruiters won’t tell you.” “Before You Enlist!” (2018) provides a rational voice to counter the seductive and often deceptive recruiting practices of the U.S. military. The message is not “don’t enlist” but rather to provide young people and their […]
