As veterans, we know the lasting impacts that U.S. militarism wreaks on our society, with a culture of violence and glorification of the military and war. U.S. militarism and the war industry, lavishly funded by the U.S. government, hold war or the threat of war as a higher priority than the security of our children, our communities, and our global environment and climate. As Veterans For Peace, we expose those costs of war. Peace at Home, Peace Abroad is more than a slogan – it is our commitment to work against militarized violence and for peace.
Veterans For Peace Memorial Day Statement
As we do every year on Memorial Day, Veterans For Peace remembers the victims of war. America's militarized culture remembers only our own military casualties while conveniently forgetting the millions more dead and wounded who die in war whom we shrug off as "the enemy" and obscenely dismiss as "collateral damage" -- the women, the children, the old and sick, the birds, the four-leggeds, the creatures of the sea, the trees and crops, the billions who go without clean water, education and health care because war has stolen the money. NO ONE wins in war -- but even losing wars make money.
Every year, we march in parades, lay wreaths, give speeches, recite poetry, and silently vigil so that we never forget the soldiers, civilians and ALL living things butchered by war.
We will not honor some deaths and ignore others. We do not glorify either warriors or war because there is no glory in war. Instead, we give witness to the folly and the costs of war - human, economic, political and environmental - on Memorial Day.
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." Jeanette Rankin, first woman member of Congress
"War is a racket!" USMC General Smedley Butler
Please send your chapter events to press@veteransforpeace.org