As the season turns from summer to autumn, We Are Not Your Soldiers has begun its fall semester school visits in October.

We went to a NYC high school where Joe Urgo shared his story with students in three special education classes.

Then John Burns arrived in New York City along with his service dog, Happy, to spend four days doing presentations to 8 classes at four colleges in the metropolitan area. Happy was a major hit at each college — in addition to discussions about John’s military experiences, students had questions about service dogs and PTS and enjoyed taking photos of Happy and his special outfits at the end of class.

We went to a private college on Long Island and then to three public colleges in the city — one four-year college and two community colleges. Most presentations started with viewing “Collateral Murder” and the discussion took off from there. Students expressed shock and dismay at the callousness of the helicopter crew. John explained how this can develop during basic training which the military uses to break you down and then build you up into someone who can follow all sorts of orders. One of the way this happens is through cadences, as explained in the video clip at the top of this page. Some classes viewed “Unmanned” and discussed how the normalization of killing and dehumanization has psychological effects on family life.

We’re getting ready to do other presentations in November. Your support makes this happen. Tell educators and students about our program and how they can invite us to their school or organization or club without a fee. Your donations make that possible by providing the funds to give small stipends to the speakers and pay costs for transportation and materials.