"How do we ask a soldier to be the last to die for a mistake?" 

Poconos and Northeast PA Chapter 124

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

We, having dutifully served our nation, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end we will work, with others

(a) Toward increasing public awareness of the costs of war.
(b) To restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations 
(c) To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons
(d) To seek justice for veterans and victims of war
(e) To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

To achieve these goals, members of Veterans For Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.

We urge all people who share this vision to join us.

Our membership is comprised of veterans from all wars spanning from The Spanish Civil War to the Gulf War.  These members are distributed amongst 86 nationwide chapters, and dozens of international affiliations.

Our international activities include working with our affiliations in El Salvador, Russia, Canada, Japan, Guatemala, Viet Nam, the Netherlands, Chiapas (Mexico), France, England, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vieques (Puerto Rico), and numerous others.  A member of the Nobel-Peace Prize winning Coalition to Ban the Sale and Use of Landmines, VFP has been undertaking arduous tasks since its inception.  From bringing medical aid to Central American nations, to evacuating wounded children from war-torn Bosnian hospitals and securing medical treatment elsewhere around the globe, or just sitting down with American high school kids so that they may make choices for themselves based on reality, and not myth.  We remain firmly committed to the abolition of war.

We know the consequences of American foreign policy because once, at a time in our lives, so many of us carried it out.  We find it sad that war seems so delightful, so often, to those that have no knowledge of it.  We will proudly, and patriotically, continue to denounce war despite whatever misguided sense of euphoria supports it

1985 - 2005 Twenty Years of Waging Peace

What is Veterans For Peace? Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985. It is structured around a national office in Saint Louis, MO and comprised of members across the country organized in chapters or as at-large members. There is an annual convention in August for members from across the nation. Members receive periodic VFP publications. The organization includes men and women veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, other conflicts and peacetime veterans. Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary. Veterans For Peace is an official Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) represented at the UN. Whether or not you wish to participate in chapter activities, please consider becoming a Veteran For Peace member. As an organization, we are what our members make us. You can be part of that effort. Help us put an end to war.

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. Some major areas of concern and involvement are: WAR IN IRAQ: When our government threatened invasion, we conducted public forums, met with elected representatives and participated in marches to express our opposition. As the war began, we gathered in Washington, DC, with other veterans groups for Operation Dire Distress. Since then, we joined together with Military Families Speak Out and others in the Bring Them Home Now campaign and supported recently returned vets who formed the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Local chapters continue to conduct educational forums, demonstrations and ongoing Iraq memorial displays, such as Arlington West, to remember the growing human cost of the war, to end the occupation and to bring our troops hone now! AND AT HOME: Members and chapters actively participate in efforts to save VA healthcare and defend of veterans’ rights; to protect our civil liberties threatened by the “Patriot Act” and other repressive legislation; 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. VIETNAM: VFP has worked with other Vietnam veterans to bring medical supplies, help build clinics, hospitals, and schools, advocate for Agent Orange victims and promote reconciliation and friendship between our two countries and peoples. SOA WATCH: Each year VFP members from across the country go to Fort Benning, Georgia, to demonstrate for the closing of the Army's infamous School of the Americas, a training center for thousands of soldiers from repressive regimes in Latin America with long records of human rights abuses. KOREA: After revelations of the massacres of civilians by American soldiers during the Korean War, we sent several fact-finding delegations to investigate these allegations and bring the hidden history of that war before the public. Today we continue to work for an end to that conflict through our Korea Peace Campaign. VIEQUES: Along with other veteran and community groups, we actively supported the people of Puerto Rico in their struggle to end the US Navy's six decades of bombing and shelling on the island municipality of Vieques. We continue to support current efforts for cleaning up the environment and return of the land to the people of Vieques. COLOMBIA: VFP sent fact-finding delegations to this violence-torn land and educated U.S. citizens to the US military involvement, the murder of union leaders by para-militaries and other human rights abuses, including the harmful effects of chemical defoliants used in the "war on drugs". CENTRAL AMERICA: In the 1980's, we opposed US sponsored wars and continue to support people struggling for their rights and dignity. We regularly send election observers to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador in support of justice and peace. Veterans For Peace was founded in 1985, as a non-profit 501c3 educational organization and recognized as a United Nations Non-Governmental Organization in 1990. Chapters and members are active in communities throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. National conventions are held annually and members communicate through quarterly newsletters as well as daily list-serve news, on line discussions groups and the national and many chapter websites.