| See the VTPS Talking Points | Veterans Teaching Peace in Schools (VTPS) |
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Dear Friends: Thanks to you all for helping to make our efforts to get peaceful veterans into schools a success. As you may know, Bush asked for vets to speak to students from 11/11 to 11/17 in support of militarism, and we jumped on that initiative to speak about the opposite. The results were great. We organized 86 vets and 75 coordinators in 30 states in preparation for that week, and were able to facilitate about two dozen speaking engagements. In addition, we had a number of other engagements beyond that week and still have more scheduled--some as far out as February. Most importantly, we're not going away. We now have an on-going resource for those who want to have veterans speak for peace in the future, and we will do everything we can to facilitate it. OTHER ORGANIZATIONS It turns out that the idea of having veterans speak to students is not new at all. The efforts of Veterans Teaching Peace in Schools (VTPS) were focused directly on the week of 11/11 - 11/17 and were concerned mainly with creating an effort that could capitalize on the automatic publicity that comes from having the president call for an action. However, other veterans who have dedicated themselves to peace were already well organized and have been reaching out to young people for years. This includes such organizations as Veterans Education Project and Veterans Speakers Alliance. You can visit them by going to the VTPS web site at www.erols.com/madjim Point is, there are lots of us who have been in the military, and may have been in war, have concluded that there are far better ways to deal with humanity on a global scale, and are taking steps to share our experiences with those who are just beginning to form their view of the world. MEDIA COVERAGE Along the way, we also managed to get solid media coverage. Although the bulk of the media is currently engaging in cheerleading, some in the press still want to cover both sides, and we managed to find them. The result was solid coverage including several local articles about individual speakers, an interview on a nationally syndicated radio show, an article by a magazine in London, and several interviews posted on the Internet. To read the one from WPKN visit: www.wpkn.org/betweenthelines/ and click on the heading "Veterans for Peace respond..." If the article has since been removed, you can access the interview directly at: www.wpkn.org/wpkn/news/madison120701.ram FEEDBACK If you were a speaker, coordinator, or student involved with VTPS, we'd like to hear from you. The web page has a section for comments from those affiliated with VTPS, and it would be nice to have a few more comments on the events that our members helped make happen. NEXT STEPS VTPS has achieved its primary objective of responding in direct opposition to Bush's call, so you may not hear much more unless your services can be directly called on as a speaker or coordinator. But the effort will continue. The list of volunteers continues to grow, and with all the talk of expanding the war into Iraq, Somalia, North Korea, and who- knows-where-else, our task as advocates for peace may be far from over. Thanks again for all your help!
James Madison |