This week, Lyle Rubin, a former Marine who was sent to Afghanistan, will visit high schools and college classes in New York City as part of World Can’t Wait’s  We Are Not Your Soldiers program.  In this small but important way, we are intervening with students who are in danger of signing up with the U.S. military.

We are grateful to those of you who have supported this project which brings veterans into high school and college classes to speak to students about their real experiences in the US military occupying other countries.  We look forward to your continued support and the support of others to bring this program to more students throughout New York City and to grow it  so that it can reach out to students around the country.

Please help us spread the word
> > Like and share our Facebook page 
> > Donate for advertising to reach educators in other states.  We are prepared to go anywhere, physically or virtually, to any school that invites us in to address its students.

Your funding has provided travel support for the veterans most of whom live at a distance from where they are speaking, small stipends to help defray their expenses and printed materials for the students.  We are also very grateful to these speakers who share their experiences and their lives – we understand how difficult it is to do that.  They struggle to do this in order to help others avoid the trauma they have suffered and to avoid the horrific violence being aimed at so many others around the world.

We started off the 2018-19 school year with a visit to two public college classes with two speakers who dialogued with each other and with the students:  Joe Urgo, a Vietnam veteran who was the first veteran to return to Vietnam as an active opponent of the war and Bruce Dancis, a Vietnam resister who spent 19 months in Federal prison for refusing to be drafted.  They explained to the current generation the history of the war on Vietnam and the genesis and development of their own views and decisions to resist in different ways.

Draft resister Bruce Dancis and Vietnam veteran Joe Urgo present at a college classroom.

Miles Megaciph while performing at a high school, before dialoguing with the students, wearing one of our “Military Recruiters – Get the Hell Away From Me” t-shirts.

In October, we did a full-week tour with Marine veteran and hip hop artist Miles Megaciph.  Not only did Miles perform for the classes with songs that spoke of his experiences in the military, but he shared forthrightly his own journey, the damaging effects his time in the Marines had on his life, the time it took to be able to speak openly about what he had gone through and his return with a Veterans for Peace delegation to Okinawa, where he had been stationed, this time in solidarity with the Okinawans who are demanding the removal of the US bases.  We spent two full days in one large traditional high school, one day split between two small alternative high schools, a full day in another alternative high school and then a day with three classes at a public college.

Watch this video which shows Miles at two of the high schools we visited as well as an interview with him as he walks around New York City.  A former New Yorker, he traveled from his current home in Mobile AL to tour in New York City.

Video by Will Griffin of the Peace Report.

People want to know how we get these speakers into schools.  Teachers who care about their students, and occasionally administrators, make it happen.

> > We need your help.  Speak to your local schools, tell them about what we do: ask teachers, professors, administrators, students and parents to get us invited in.  We will work with educators to prepare the presentation so it supports their curriculum and the big questions the students are dealing with.  Help us spread the word via social media and outreach to profressional educators in state and national organizations.

Thank you!