Veterans for Peace
Veterans for Peace has a national office in Saint Louis, Missouri and members across the country, both organized in chapters and at-large.
At least one unrelated anti-war group from the Vietnam War era had a similar name: "Veterans for Peace in Viet-Nam" participated in a number of demonstrations in 1967.
[citation needed] VFP first began organizing major anti-war protests in 1987 when, on Easter Sunday, hundreds of its members marched on President Reagan's "Western White House" in California, and Vice President Bush's vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, protesting U.S. support for the Nicaraguan Contra counter-revolution.
[10] On August 5, 2005, Sheehan spoke at the organization's 20th annual convention in Dallas, Texas, just a day before traveling to Crawford to begin her vigil.
[citation needed] In March 2006, Veterans For Peace and coalition partners Iraq Veterans Against the War, Gold Star Families for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out joined with Hurricane Katrina survivors and the relief and rebuilding organizations Savin' Ourselves After Katrina, Common Ground Collective, and Bayou Liberty Relief, as well as a number of African-American churches along the Gulf Coast on a march from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Originally titled the Veterans and Survivors March, it quickly took on the moniker of Walkin' to New Orleans, in tribute to the famous song by Fats Domino.
The marchers traveled the Gulf Coast advocating an immediate end to the war in Iraq and redirection of funds to help rebuild areas Katrina damaged not only in New Orleans, but also in Mississippi, and Alabama.
"One exhibit is especially offensive: kids as young as 13 years old can aim automatic weapons from atop a humvee at a large screen to virtually kill people.
[8] From May 4–18, 1987, sixteen members of VFP representing eight states traveled through Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua conducting site visits and interviews with high level government, military, religious and private sector elders, and talking with many average citizens.
[15] In 1988, many VFP members participated in the Veterans Peace Convoy which was intended to truck medical and humanitarian aid to the suffering children of Nicaragua.
Ryan spent two years working in Nicaragua training pollution control teams how to correct water contamination problems.
[19] [citation needed] Within a year of the start of the Yugoslav Wars in 1991, it was announced the hospitals in several cities were no longer functional, and thousands of refugees had fled to the mountains.
Following discussions with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), another UN-NGO, the VFP National Office began contacting hospitals around the U.S. requesting pro bono services for any war wounded children that could be evacuated.
Within weeks VFP had secured pro bono space and services for over 100 wounded children, but IOM had been able to evacuate very few due to Serbian, Croatian, and U.N. political constraints.
In response, VFP organized the Children of War Rescue Project, and with assistance from contacts in the U.K., chief among them John Morrison of the Ex-Services Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and over 200 other British volunteers, a 63 vehicle convoy including 50 ambulances was staged at Brighton, England.
A Spanish battalion of U.N. protection forces assisted with armored vehicles in the evacuation of over 22 wounded children from East Mostar, Bosnia, including at least one family member accompanying each child.
[citation needed] When the U.S. government threatened invasion of Iraq, VFP conducted public forums, met with elected representatives and participated in marches to express its opposition.
In a letter sent to each member of the U.S. House and Senate, Veterans For Peace stated that "this administration's war on Iraq, in addition to being increasingly unpopular among Americans, is an unmistakable violation of our Constitution and federal law which you have sworn to uphold.
VFP has called for the dissolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a "NATO has always been a war-making institution lacking in accountability to the peoples of the nations it claims to represent."
[citation needed] The VFP has actively supported the end of the U.S. Navy's use of the island-municipality of Vieques, Puerto Rico for bombing target practice.
[citation needed] VFP sent fact-finding delegations to Colombia and educated Americans about US military involvement, the murder of union leaders by para-militaries and other human rights abuses, including the use of harmful chemical defoliants in the War on Drugs.
