Members of Military Families Speak Out are actively opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, children and we are related to members of the armed services who are serving in the war, and who are veterans. We are outspokenly against wars of aggression! BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW and TAKE CARE OF THEM WHEN THEY GET HERE!
On Tuesday, June 9th, members of various groups, including CodePink Women for Peace NYC, Peace Action New York State, Brooklyn For Peace, and the Granny Peace Brigade gathered on the steps of City Hall in downtown Manhattan to voice their opposition to the Dept. of Education budget which will include $2.4 million for Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps or JRTOC. Councilmember Robert Jackson, Dist. #7, NYC, called this press conference. He is the Chair of the Education Committee as well as on the NYC funding committee and stands with members of the peace and justice community on this issue.
The statement by Elaine Brower, of MFSO-NY, is below. This letter was also hand delivered to Councilmember Jackson, as well as all the City Council members, and directly to the Mayor’s assistant.
June 9, 2009
Dear Councilmembers & Mr. Mayor:
I am the mother of a Marine Corps. Reservist who has served 3 tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. My son was also a victim of the JRTOC program.
I stand here today to beg you to stop funding the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps with tax money that amounts to over 2.4 million dollars. This money must be spent on educating our youth, not militarizing them further. Government military recruiters have full access to our children, more than we would have ever dreamed, and that which we strongly oppose through the “No Child Left Behind” Act. Why give more of our money to a military institution, when we are in dire need of funds for real education and social programs.
The Governor, the Mayor and the New York City Council, have made cutbacks in children’s day care which impacts women who must find places to care for their child while they work to support a family; the city government is threatening layoffs, specifically in the field of education where talks of excessing our bright young teachers of promise are quietly being conducted; and also making cutbacks in our city services and in programs that feed and house the homeless.
And yet, funding is still being considered for a frivolous, and dangerous program such as JRTOC in our high schools when these same schools may not have the necessary updated textbooks or computers for our children to use for learning.
Why is this? Why is it that social service programs which are meant to enhance the lives of families, are the first to go and militarization is the first to stay. Beware of this process, we condemn other countries for training young children for war, but yet we do it here ourselves. How can you justify that?
JRTOC is just that, the indoctrination of a child. Taking a child and placing them in a program that does not tolerate dissent, that only speaks in one voice of nationalism, my country right or wrong, and would not allow another viewpoint. Our children will then only learn this, and will always fear speaking truth to power, or disagreeing with the constant clamor for war. The more we feed our kids into this program, the more we become an objectionable society.
I speak from experience. My son was part of the JROTC program, and all he did was wear his uniform when told, raise and lower the flag when told. They helped him pass the ASVAB, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery so then they could escort him to the nearest recruiting station, which they did.
When he was having trouble in school, they did not help him. I had to constantly run to his aid and dig him out of any hole he had put himself in as a young boy. There was absolutely no support from the Naval JRTOC program that he was a part of. In fact, they would chastise him to the point of belittlement, making him feel inferior and unable to do anything on his own. This only led to more problems for him, and for me to fix.
Trust me when I tell you this program is only there to capture and detain our most precious commodity, our children, to be militarized and surpress their freedom of speech and individuality.
I urge, no I demand, that the funding be allocated to programs for educators to help and teach our children in their quest for knowledge and growth, and not fund those who hide under the uniform that represents the destruction of that very same element we so espouse to emulate.
If an adult decides to join the military, that is his or her decision, on their own made with all the tools that educators and parents could have given to them through their formative years. When the military gets into the business of public institutions, such as our school system, it clearly has conflicts of interest. We all stand here today representing thousands and thousands of voices who say NO TO JRTOC!
Sincerely,
Elaine Brower
Military Families Speak Out
Military Families Speak Out held a holiday fundraiser at St. Paul/St. Andrews Church on Sunday, December 21st, 2008. We saw lots of our friends and some people from the neighborhood who came to support what we were doing. We raised enough money through our rummage sale and entertainment to help Matthis Chiroux with his upcoming legal battle with the Army concerning his refusal to go to Iraq (see www.matthisresists.us) and also for Nick Morgan, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, to help with medical expenses when he was trampled by a Nassau County Police Department horse at the last presidential debate.
Thanks to one and all who came and joined in the festivities and contributed. And a special thanks to Senator Bill Perkins and Senator Eric Adams who came to show their support for our work, and who are co-sponsoring a resolution in the New York State Senate to defederalize the New York State National Guard (see www.nysavetheguard.com).
Lionelle Hamanaka, MFSO
Vicki McFadden, MFSO
John McDougall, MFSO
Combat Boots of Fallen Military Members
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — On October 14th, the day prior to the final presidential debate, organizations brought the moving Eyes Wide Open exhibit to the campus at Hofstra. This memorial was created by the American Friends Service Committee, a part of the Quaker Society, in 2004 and was started with 500 pairs of soldiers’ combat boots that represented the national death toll as it was then of those military members who were killed in Iraq. Four years later, the exhibit holds 4,182 pairs of combat boots and hundreds of Iraqi shoes, representing the innocent civilian lives taken by those soldiers wearing the combat boots.
At the Hofstra campus only the New York State boots were displayed, representing a total of 183 lives lost in Iraq. Sad posters with the faces of Iraqi children surrounded by the shoes also stood a few feet away from those boots. The exhibit, brought there by AFSC, Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace (VFP) and the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Tomorrows, was on display from noon until 6 PM at the Labyrinth located in the middle of the campus.
As students and professors headed in and out of class, they passed the exhibit. Most walked through with sad expressions, nodding heads, whispering to each other, and honoring the dead. Those of us who carried the burden of explaining what this all meant, handed out flyers and information explaining its importance. Of course, you had an occasional screech of “We Love War!” and “Bush is Great!” coming from somewhere far off in the distance, as a coward would shout so as not to be identified by those who may actually be suffering and reflecting.
At one point early on, a father showed up to remove his son’s boots and name tag from the display. He was angered by the fact that AFSC would use his son’s death in this way. However, he stood, with a friend, off to the side of the Labyrinth for over 30 minutes shocked by the beauty of what he was seeing, and not really knowing how to approach us.
He argued with the AFSC coordinator about how we must kill the terrorists, and his son did not die in vain, and we had some nerve doing this, and then handed her a DVD of the latest right-wing garbage propaganda “Obsession” detailing how “all of Islam” wants us dead because of our “freedoms.”
The rest of us stood aside and let him rant, feeling his pain, anger and frustration. He left quietly and we remained there talking to those coming and going the rest of the day. The feeling when you walk through the display of combat boots, dog tags, photos, and memorabilia donated by family members is one of complete despair, grief and total sadness. It drains the emotions, as well as fueling a fire of passion to end all wars.
At closing, 6 PM, the “March of the Dead”, a procession of black-clad students with white face masks symbolizing those Iraqi’s and Afghani’s killed in the wars, proceeded from across campus and stopped at the Exhibit. The vision was so absolutely moving that everyone who was passing stopped and watched as the marching dead surrounded the display of boots in a circle of silence. A reading of the names of all of the fallen soldiers and those innocent civilians continued with the ringing of a gong to announce the solemnity of what war really meant to the lives of others.
Those of us who remained there found it hard to pack up and leave. Flowers had been placed on the boots, and in the middle of the Labryinth earlier in the day, which remained when the exhibit was removed as a symbol to remind all those who passed by that we are still at war and more boots and shoes will be added to the pile.
March of the Dead
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