Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on November 8, 2022

 

From a letter by Gerry Werham, WNC Veterans for Peace member:

A Veterans Day for Peace, not War

Veterans For Peace - Western North Carolina will again this year assemble in remembrance and reclamation of the origins of Armistice Day.

Over one hundred years ago the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The first World War had just ended and nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to all wars. Armistice Day was born and was designated as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated”. 

After World War II, the U.S. Congress decided to rebrand November 11 as Veterans Day. Honoring the warrior quickly morphed into honoring the military and glorifying war. Armistice Day was flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism.

Join us at the WNC Veterans Memorial near the Buncombe County Courthouse at 10AM on Friday, November 11 for an hour of reflections on the local influence of militarism, readings and music leading up to hearing bells ring 11 times in honoring that day 104 years ago when the world celebrated the end of “the war to end all wars.”

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  

Facebook: Veterans for Peace Western North Carolina Chapter 099

Email: president@vfp099.org

Reclaiming 11/11 as a Day For Peace

 Veterans For Peace - Western North Carolina will again this year assemble in remembrance and reclamation of the origins of Armistice Day.

Over one hundred years ago the world celebrated peace as a universal principle. The first World War had just ended and nations mourning their dead collectively called for an end to all wars.  Armistice Day was born and was designated as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated."

After World War II, the U.S. Congress decided to rebrand November 11 as Veterans Day. Honoring the warrior quickly morphed into honoring the military and glorifying war. Armistice Day was flipped from a day for peace into a day for displays of militarism.

Join us at the WNC Veterans Memorial near the Buncombe County Courthouse at 10AM on Friday, November 11 for an hour of reflections on the local influence of militarism, readings and music leading up to hearing bells ring 11 times in honoring that day 104 years ago when the world celebrated the end of 'the war to end all wars.'

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on November 1, 2022

 

 

The above image came from Peace & Planet News.

From Peace & Planet News, a Publication of the NYC VFP chapter: American and Russian Women Call for Peace

     We are united in the belief that diplomacy, dialogue, engagement, and exchange are urgently needed to end the current crisis and avert a catastrophic military conflict that could spiral out of control –  even push the world to the precipice of nuclear war.

     For the United States and Russia, the only sane and humane course of action now is a principled commitment to clear, creative and persistent diplomacy –  not military action. 

     We must redefine security so that women, families, and our children can live in peace.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org

Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace Western North Carolina Chapter 099        Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on October 18, 2022

 

 At the Boston Veterans Day parade, November 11, 2014.

An Excerpt from Peace & Planet News, a Publication of the New York City VFP chapter:

This piece is an excerpt, adapted from Ann Jones's book They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars –  the Untold Story. 

An older army officer calls me over... “I've been in the Army 26 years”, he says, “and I can tell you it's a con”.

He has been an adviser to the chief counterterrorism officer in Iraq. He doesn't think much of military bosses or politicians or Americans in general who send the lowliest 1% to fight wars that make the other one percent, on the high end, “monu-fuckin’-mentally rich”.

“ War is absurd”, he says. “Boys don't know any better.  But for a grown man to be trapped in stupid wars –  it's embarrassing, it's humiliating, it's absurd”.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org

Facebook: Veterans for Peace Western North Carolina Chapter 099 

Email: president@vfp099.org

Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 Call to Action

ASHEVILLE ACTION: Western North Carolina Veterans For Peace chapter 099 has approved a Call for Action for Oct.18, in Pack Square, from 4:30 to 5:30. This action will coordinate with the United National AntiWar Coalition's call for a week of action from Oct. 15 to Oct. 22.

 

Please notify the contacts in your organizations and your friends.

 

The US is increasingly belligerent, and this belligerency is strongly supported in the mass media. It is essential to raise opposing voices to save humanity.

 

 

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1579954136011124736?s=20&t=5a7_LohcYneHZiZr0pTZOg

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on October 11, 2022

 

Photo from VFP website of NYC protest this year.

An Excerpt from Peace & Planet News, a Publication of the New York City VFP chapter (by Chris Hedges):

Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military. This accelerates our decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the squandering of 8 trillion dollars in the wars in the Middle East illustrate. War and sanctions, It is believed, will cripple Russia, rich in gas and natural resources.  War, or the threat of war, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China.

These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099      Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 on October 4, 2022

 Excerpts from remarks by Rusty Sivils, a Western North Carolina VFP member:

     I appreciate your thanking for my service, and since you have, I will tell you what my service was. I spent three years in the army helping my country to murder a couple of million women and children, (and that is a conservative estimate of the number of civilians the the U.S. military killed in Viet Nam).   

  Today the “defense” budget is officially $839 billion (or about $93 million an hour), which is even bigger than Biden asked for, although if all the programs that are not in the official budget are included, such as the Veterans Administration, the nuclear arms program, military pensions and others, the figure is around $1.4 trillion a year.

     If you really want to thank me for my service, you could, for instance, find ways to stop paying war taxes (you could consult the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at WWW.nwtrcc.org). If you continue to pay them, your children will not die as a result, but someone else’s children will, as the US continues to fuel and supply and profit from wars around the world, like in Yemen and Ukraine,

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Chapter 099 - Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org  
Facebook: Veterans for Peace Chapter 099
Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802