On Friday, March 18th, the weekend that activists traveled to Washington, DC to protest eight years of war on Iraq, the We Are Not Your Soldiers tour spent that Friday morning in a local DC Catholic School.

Participating in the presentation were Elaine Brower, anti-war military mom and National Steering Committee member of World Can’t Wait, and Michael Ferner, former President and current member of Veterans for Peace.  We spoke to three classes, an approximate total of 55 students in all.  After showing the video of “Collateral Murder”, Elaine spoke about how three combat tours adversely affected not only her son, but herself and family members, how you raise your children to be kind and non-violent only to allow the government to turn them into killers.  Now after 10 years, her son suffers from severe PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

Mike Ferner, who was a corpsman in the Navy during the Viet Nam war, spoke about what it actually meant to be shot.  He showed vivid photos of the human body and the after effects of a bullet wound to the back, head, neck and groin area.

The students were shocked and dismayed, had many questions, and also most of them had members of their family or knew friends in the military.  There was lively discussion, and thought provoking moments.  They thanked the members of the tour, took bandanas and flyers. Thanks go out to the teacher and the school for giving us this opportunity to explain what it really means to join the military and participate in wars.

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