"Veterans Speak Out in NY Schools" By Jim Murphy (from the AJ Muste News)

In 2004, as a new generation of recruits started returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of us from Veterans for Peace NY started looking for ways to educate more young people about the reality of war. We formed NY Veterans Speak Out, a network linking anti-war veterans from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and Veterans for Peace (VFP). The project offers New York area teachers an opportunity for veterans to speak in their classrooms about war and the military. At first, we were happy to get an occasional invitation from a local school. Now we have a list of more than 150 teachers, and our speaking program is available in at least 80 New York City and Hudson Valley high schools.

A class at West Side High School in Manhattan listens to Veterans for Peace member Mary Reynolds Powell, who served as a captain in the Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam in 1970-71. Powell is the author of A World of Hurt: Between Innocence and Arrogance in Vietnam. Photo by NY Vets for Peace.

Anyone can do this kind of classroom visit, although it’s often easier for veterans to gain access to the education system, since as “primary sources” we are considered more credible. Who better to talk about war than veterans and civilians who have been directly affected by wars? Each speaker has a personal story to tell, and the experience and understanding of what a young person feels when “put in harm’s way.

” How to get started? The process is the same everywhere. All you have to do is make a list of every educational facility that serves 16-22 year-olds in your area. What are your priorities? Gifted kids are not going to join the military, and higher-income students will most likely go to college. So who is recruited? In urban areas, Latino males are the primary target. Black families are more skeptical now. In rural areas, where parents are more likely to have served in the military, every student is a target, and Army and Marine Corps recruiters have easy access to most schools. In early May we debated Army recruiters at Columbus High School in the Bronx, a 4,000-student school now split into four smaller schools. The next day we went to a small rural high school tucked away in the Catskills. What do these two schools have in common? They are both heavily recruited. One of our handouts is the IVAW flyer, “The 10 Lies Told By Recruiters.” The students in both schools smiled as they read the flyer and then started recounting the lies they had been told. This discussion prompted students to question the “psych” factor of the lies told by recruiters versus the reality of basic training. Always, the students without a plan for the future are asking for alternatives. We have some but we need many more to address the needs of this generation. Recruiters try to say things are different now than they were during earlier wars like Vietnam. But the experiences we had as recruits are the same as those of today’s recruits. We are all instructed in following orders without question, we get a basic course in “racism” (who we need to hate in this war) and the usual super-patriotism motivations. Somehow all this is incorporated into an alleged adherence to the 10 Commandments.

In our classroom visits, we often talk to students about “the things that we carry” to help them to understand the message of Tim O’Brien in his book of that name. Dayl Wise and I frequently work together as a team. Dayl describes one of his flashbacks of going through a village near the Cambodian border: “I had to get to the other side to pick up a chopper ride. I could do that... I have an M-16, 200 rounds of ammo and 4 grenades. I could have killed everyone ….nobody in the military would have cared.”

Aneka Hewitt, a student activist at the High School For Global Citizenship in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, won first place in the 2006-2007 anti-war poetry contest sponsored by New York Veterans Speak Out with a poem titled "In the Eyes."In this photo, Aneka receives the prize--a $500 check for college--from Jim Murphy of New York Veterans Speak Out. Photo by NY Vets for Peace.

Sometimes we lighten up—we need for the kids to see us as humans, not just old gray-haired veterans. So Dayl will describe the rations that we ate in Vietnam and then point out how wonderful school lunch is by comparison—which always gets a laugh and a fun argument. Our main goal is to make sure the kids realize that the pain may be life long and that we destroyed a beautiful culture. War is not a movie... it’s 23 hours and 59 minutes of boredom, loneliness, anger and stupid games—and one minute in which your life can change forever and your buddies killed or wounded. Do we need more opportunities to spread our message? Yes! There are a lot of combat veterans who could be talking to young people, but many have not had any prior training or experience with making presentations to high school classes. With help from a Muste Institute grant, we held a “Taking Back Our Schools” workshop in September 2006 in Manhattan with veterans, teachers, students and community activists. In the morning session we did a training with veterans where they took turns presenting to the group as they would present to a classroom. We filmed the training and created a DVD of it which we have sent out to over 200 veterans’ groups around the country who requested it to help them start local speakers’ programs in their communities.

Anyone who wants a copy of the training DVD can contact me, Jim Murphy, via email at mandm11@optonline.net or by phone at 845-358-5709

Veterans for Peace NY: www.veteransforpeaceny.org

NYVSO - Counter-Recruiting School Visits 2007-08: Our Flyer

We feel that the local Peace Action Groups found in the communities of the U.S. are the backbone of this Anti-War Movement. We are pleased to be your guest speakers at meetings to share our experiences as veterans and to support you in any way.

If you are an English, Journalism or Social Studies teacher, we are available to visit your class and discuss our observations of the Iraq War and the Vietnam War. English teachers that have selected ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien have used us to help their students get a clearer understanding of being in a war. Each speaker has a personal sense of what has occurred to him/her and their buddies, but, we all agree that politicians seldom have the experience and understanding of what a young person feels when ‘put in harm’s way’.

If you wish to have a panel discussion utilizing a larger setting in the school, we will be happy to accommodate you.

C-R : Counter-Recruiter .... D-U : Depleted Uranium Exposure

Included among our speakers are the following veterans:

Jay Wenk - US Army, WWII 90th Inf.Div., 'Battle Of The Bulge', C-R

Jose Vasquez - USArmy & ANG Medic: Active Duty, IVAW

Sue Niederer - Military Families Speak Out (for her son Seth)

Herbert Reed - US ArmyNG, Iraq War 2004, D-U Vets

Ben Chitty - USN, Vietnam '66-7' and '68, DAV, C-R

Gerard Mathew - US ArmyNG 719th Trans, Iraq War, D-U Vets

Dayl Wise - US Army, 1st Cav Recon, Vietnam War 1970

Fernando Braga – US ArmyNG, Iraq War 2004-05

Mike Gillen - USMM, Vietnam 1969,

Gerald McCarthy - USMC, Vietnam 1st Combat Engrs. Author

Contact: Jim Murphy - USAF 1st MOB/'72nd, Vietnam, '67-8, C-R

Phone: (845)358-5709