WE ARE NOT YOUR SOLDIERS!

From a student in San Jose, who wrote this after the We Are Not Your Soldiers tour reached his school:

“I went to get lunch at school and right in front of the cafeteria was 15 military recruiters and
prizes. After I saw what the war was really like, I went to the activities director and she said
I can have an antiwar protest, bullhorns and banner. So I’m going to
start up a club and prepare so I get as many kids as I can to resist.”

From students in Los Angeles, after watching testimony of Iraq Vet Jon Turner on the We Are Not Your Soldiers Tour:

“What Jon was saying, it impacted me because we as teenagers know about the marines, navy etc, is that we will get money for college, have a good experience but never know about the reality that soldiers go through.”

A student in San Francisco, wrote this after seeing the Tour

“I know some people in the military. He is still surviving in it he always says he is not a bad person. He is very depressed and sad but I love him… my friend (in the military) will kill me if someone asked me to join/sign up for the military… because war and killing people is wrong and it needs to stop”

Poem by a student in Chicago after watching the We Are Not Your Soldiers presentation

We are not your soldiers,
Miss American military.
We are misdirected and mis adjusted followers
Accommodative, silent citizens who don’t speak against your
Army Strong Announcements
of  misinterpreted mass destructions.
We are not your soldiers,
Though we march mechanically,
Strangle sand cities into surrendering with
Suffocating bullet shells
Creating inescapable hells in the passageways
Of our permanent post traumatic minds.
We chose to listen to our sergeants over
Ourselves.
Decisions have a price, but these are prepaid
So we carry out orders.
Feeling injustice tickle our conscience,
We throw hand grenades to blow the guilt away.
If we were really your soldiers,
We would be able to sleep at night,
But we are mere puppets, private political property.
Pull our strings to make our trigger fingers dance.
In these far away lands, we are many things
Transformed into savages by the battles we’ve seen.
But we will never
Be
Your soldiers