Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985. Veterans For Peace includes men and women veterans of all eras and duty stations including from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), World War II, the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf and current Iraq wars as well as other conflicts. 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.

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 home 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.

CENTRAL AMERICA:
In the 1980s, we opposed US sponsored wars and continue to support people struggling for their rights and dignity. We regularly send election observers to Guatemala, Honduras, Niscaragua and El Salvador in support of justice and peace.

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.