November was a month of travels – taking us to Georgia, Ohio and North Carolina as well as Brooklyn, Manhattan and Long Island in New York.

We began the month with two exceptional visits. We usually go to classrooms where the educators have invited us to enrich their curricula by addressing their students. These visits were to meetings of Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) college chapters. The first took us to Georgia Tech where Miles Megaciph presented in person to members of YDSA and the Organization for Social Activism (OSA). Later in the week, Miles presented via Zoom to the YDSA chapter at Ohio University.

Joy Damiani zoomed in from Oregon to speak with community college students in a Women and Gender Studies class on Long Island. Lyle Rubin zoomed in from Maryland to speak to two social psychology classes in North Carolina.

Joe Urgo went in-person to speak to two high school classes in Manhattan, concentrating on his time in Vietnam during the U.S. war on that country and how his entire life was changed by those experiences. And, still in New York City, John Burns zoomed in to two college classes in Manhattan and three very well-prepared private middle school classes in Brooklyn whose teacher noted that it’s

always a pleasure partnering with We Are Not Your Soldiers. I like how real the presentations have been over the past two years. We started with a viewing of a short film of a drone pilot who was grappling with the morality of his job. It was great that John was able to answer questions that were posed by the class in an authentic manner, being so vulnerable and authentic when speaking with our 8th graders.

Here are a couple of the comments on evaluation forms received from the college students in Manhattan following John’s visit. The presentation included viewing the Collateral Murder video. You can read more on our Students Speak Out page.

I was aware of a lot of the topics that were discussed, but the video with the attack on those children revealed by Wikileaks was really awful and shocking. I always had a general distrust of the military, but now that distrust has grown.

I really loved how open John was. I appreciated the honesty which was honestly a breath of fresh air. I was not aware of how traumatic and damaging the army is. My views on our military have changed a lot.

I liked his honesty and how he was not afraid to show his emotions. It was so uncomfortable for me to watch that video because I never thought being in the military was that bad. My views did change a lot from that video and from what the presenter was discussing.

Also, out of the classroom, Lyle Rubin spoke at a Washington DC press conference organized by Rep. Cori Bush and others of veterans calling for a ceasefire in Israel/Palestine.