Veterans for Peace is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1985. The group works to promote alternatives to war. Initially made up of US military veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War - later including veterans of the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War - as well as peacetime veterans and non-veterans, it has since spread overseas and had an active offshoot in the United Kingdom called Veterans for Peace UK from 2011 to 2022. The British offshoot of VFP, Veterans for Peace UK, was permanently shut down in August, 2022.
The organization has opposed the military policies of the United States, NATO, and Israel, and has opposed military actions and threats to Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya and Syria.
Foundation
The stated objective of the group is as follows:
We draw on our personal experiences and perspectives gained as veterans to raise public awareness of the true costs and consequences of militarism and war - and to seek peaceful, effective alternatives."
Veterans For Peace was founded and incorporated as a non-profit organization in the state of Maine on July 8, 1985.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade pp. 26-36 It was approved by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational organization that year. It was also recognized as a United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1990.Letters from IRS, and U.N. Membership Committee dated 20 Nov 1990, originals on file at VFP National Office VFP's first permanent representative to the United Nations was Benjamin Weintraub of Staten Island, New York, who was seated in 1990.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade, p. 138 Chapters and members are active in communities throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and Viet Nam. National conventions are held annually and members communicate through quarterly newsletters as well as daily listserve news, online discussion groups as well as the national and chapter websites. 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. And another demonstration in Washington, DC. Yet another group with a similar name may also have existed at the time of the Korean War.
Anti-war activities
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.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade p. 78
Starting in 2003, Veterans for Peace became a major participant of protests against the Iraq War.
In 2004, its Southern California chapters began installing Arlington West, a weekly "temporary cemetery" in tribute to those killed in the war in Iraq, each Sunday in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California.
In August 2005, Veterans For Peace Member, Desert storm veteran Dennis Kyne lead a group of veterans in support of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US Army soldier killed in Iraq who embarked on an extended anti-war vigil near the ranch of US President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas. 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. Members traveled from California to install an Arlington West display at "Camp Casey", the site of Sheehan's protest.
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.
According to Vets for Peace - Peace Action Network, "The military has a clear and dangerous presence at Milwaukee's Summerfest" (June 26 - July 6, 2008). "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."
Veterans for Peace participated in an anti-war demonstration held on the White House sidewalk in December 2010; dozens were arrested, including Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges and a number of Veterans for Peace members.The Real News (TRNN)
In 2016, the US Peace Memorial Foundation awarded The US Peace Prize to the group “In recognition of heroic efforts to expose the causes and costs of war and to prevent and end armed conflict.”
Issues
Veterans for Peace takes positions on a number of issues which generally oppose the military policy of the United States, NATO, and its allies against nations such as Iran, Russia, Palestine and Syria.
Veterans affairs Members and chapters actively participate in efforts to save VA healthcare and defend veterans rights; to provide counseling through the GI Rights Hotline to active duty military needing assistance; and providing alternative information to counter military recruiters in the schools.
In April 1986, VFP protested the judicial execution of David Funchess, a Vietnam War veteran who was electrocuted in Florida for a double murder despite exhibiting signs of severe post-traumatic stress disorder from his service that may have affected his moral culpability in the murders he committed. VFP set up a round-the-clock vigil at the Florida Vietnam War Memorial in the days leading up to Funchess's execution. Members of VFP called Funchess a "forgotten man" and protested that neither Florida Governor Bob Graham nor the state and federal courts had taken Funchess's PTSD into enough consideration when refusing to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
Central America In the 1980s, VFP opposed US-sponsored wars in Central America. On Easter Sunday, Apr 19, 1987, VFP members marched on President Reagan's Western White House in California, and Vice President Bush's vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, protesting U.S. intervention in Central America. 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. Following their return, they published a 40-page delegation report that was distributed to 5,000 opinion leaders in the United States including members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the heads of many government offices and agencies, church, labor, and educational leaders, and media pace setters.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade, pp. 61-76 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. Though the convoy was stopped by U.S. Customs and Treasury officials in Texas at the Laredo border checkpoint, on June 15, 1988, the vehicles were off-loaded into containers at a Texas port facility and about 95% of the cargo reached its destination in Nicaragua.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade pp. 81-82 In July 1988, VFP member Joe Ryan, an environmental scientist, of Tallahassee, Florida, established VFP's Nicaragua Environmental Science Project. Ryan spent two years working in Nicaragua training pollution control teams how to correct water contamination problems. The project was credited with significantly reducing the nation's infant mortality rate.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade pp. 83-84 Also in July 1988, VFP member Randy Parent of Caribou, Maine, drove a truckload of smelting and casting equipment to Guatemala where he established the Pro-Tierra Machine Tool Project to train members of several indigenous tribes how to make farm tools for the 100,000 members of the Pro-Tierra land reform movement.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade pp. 84-85 VFP regularly sends election observers to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Yugoslav wars 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. As the refugees were ill-equipped to face the coming winter, many were expected to perish. VFP's UN-NGO representative Ben Weintraub was instructed to offer U.N. officials whatever assistance VFP could provide in helping to deliver medical and humanitarian aid. 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. Seven VFP volunteers including three physicians also joined the convoy that traveled almost non-stop for five days and nights. The convoy stopped only to regroup in Croatia. 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. The children were airlifted to Ancona, Italy, and once stabilized, from there to hospitals throughout western Europe and the United States. In all, pro bono space and medical services were provided for about 50 wounded Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian children through the project.Veterans for Peace: The First Decade pp. 154-222
War on terror In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, VFP called for restraint while agreeing that: "...the hijacked airplane attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon a grievous assault upon innocence; a cause for outrage, sadness and disbelief....At this critical point, we believe it is essential to recognize that terrorists do not represent, nor are representative, of any community or country as a whole. We must not allow terrorism the power to create fear, suspicion and hatred -- or to direct our nation's domestic and foreign policies. We must not surrender to the cycle of retaliatory violence these angry people would push us into. Instead, we must come together and support each other, with faith and trust." Veterans For Peace seeks to protect civil liberties that they believe are threatened by the Patriot Act and other similar legislation.
War in Iraq and Afghanistan 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. As the war began, VFP gathered in Washington, DC, with other veterans groups for Operation Dire Distress. The organization participated in the Bring Them Home Now campaign and supports the Iraq Veterans Against the War.