Ken’s dad served in the Marines in WWII and in Korea so upon graduating Princeton where he had gone on an NROTC scholarship, he selected the Marine Corps option in 1958. As he often said, “I grew up drinking Marine Corps Kool-Aid.” Somehow, although there was much he loved about the Marines, that didn’t close his eyes to reality.
From March 1964 to November 1966, he was the commanding officer of a Communications Intelligence Marine outfit attached to an NSA unit based in Okinawa with detachments in Viet Nam. In 1966 Ken went to Viet Nam and visited the detachments in Chu Lai, Danang, and Phi Bai. He was never permanently assigned to Viet Nam but he saw enough to convince him to submit a letter of resignation that became effective in November 1966.
Explaining why he left a promising career as a Marine officer, he said, “Among other responsibilities, the field activity (in Viet Nam) was tasked with assigning missions to the so-called “DeSoto Patrols” which routinely violated North Vietnam’s territorial waters to cause them to activate their air defenses and communications systems so that we could intercept them and figure out their “order of battle.” Since I was attached to the NSA field activity on Okinawa, I habitually attended the daily intelligence briefings there. Two things quickly became obvious to me. 1) We were creating Viet Cong faster than we could kill them; and 2) we were deliberately provoking the North Vietnamese to attack our ships. When the so-called Tonkin Gulf incident took place and Lyndon Johnson used it to justify a war, this was the last straw in an eight-year accumulation of experiences that forced me to realize I could no longer serve as an instrument of U.S. policies.”
In 1967, while pursuing graduate study in Political Science at UC-Berkeley, he became aware of a local organization called Veterans for Peace started by the great poet and WWII Navy combat veteran Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ken joined the organization. Interestingly, another former VFP stalwart, WWII infantry veteran, Jay Wenk, was also a member. Ferlinghetti’s VFP didn’t last too long as it was more or less absorbed into Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). At the time Ken had two children, both born in Okinawa when he was stationed there. Between family duties and being absorbed with his studies, Ken was not too active other than taking his family to protest marches. One such big antiwar march that Ken attended was led by then-Lt. (jg) Susan Schnall, the current Veterans For Peace President. On the day before the march Schnall flew in a small plane piloted by a friend and dropped thousands of antiwar flyers promoting the march from the plane over five military bases and an aircraft carrier. Eventually Susan and Ken became close and lasting friends as they served in Veterans For Peace.
Ken retired from the USMC as a Major. He left active duty because of what he had seen the U.S. do in Viet Nam, but throughout his life, he embodied what it truly means to be “an officer and a gentleman.” He was a rare and gentle person who loved people (and dogs) and was loved and respected by almost all who had the good fortune to know him. Even if you met him just briefly, you came away with that impression.
After leaving Berkeley to teach at Bennington College in Vermont, Ken became more active with local Quaker-led peace groups and in the early 1980s with the “Beyond War” movement. In 1986 Ken attended a Beyond War training in Rindge, New Hampshire. Retired Marine Corps Col. John Barr, then president of the recently formed (1985) Veterans For Peace happened to be present. As Ken told it, Barr was a “classic, tough, gravel-voiced Marine, built like a brick” and he said to Ken, “You’re a Marine, right?” “Yessir!” Ken replied. “You will join Veterans For Peace and you will enjoy it!” Col. Barr ordered. And Ken was active with VFP from then on.
In 1999 he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2001 the VFP National Convention was held in Albuquerque and Ken was inspired to start a chapter in Santa Fe.
I got to know and love Ken through our mutual membership in VFP. In the last 16 years we spent a lot of time as comrades on solidarity missions overseas and during civil resistance actions here in the states. My partner, Ellen Davidson, now a member of the VFP Board of Directors, was almost always with us taking pictures and being part of the action. Even though she was over 20 years younger, Ken affectionately called her “Mom.” He used to say we were like family.
In 2013 and 2017, “the Major,” as he was affectionately called, joined VFP solidarity missions resisting Israeli violence in Palestine. He went on multiple veterans’ delegations to stand with local people resisting U.S. domination in Okinawa and Korea and at Standing Rock during a bitter North Dakota winter. We were with thousands of U.S. veterans who came to support indigenous resistance to the oil pipeline being illegally built through their land.
Ken with Ellen Barfield and Mike Hastie at a vigil against the demolition of Al Araqeeb, a village in the Negev (Naqib) desert. Photo: Ellen Davidson
In 2019, Ken and I were invited by Ireland Veterans For Peace to come to the “Emerald Isle” along with a delegation (Ray McGovern, Mike Hanes, Enya Anderson, Mike Ferner, Ellen Davidson, Chris Smiley) of U.S. Veterans For Peace to stand for Irish neutrality, to oppose and expose the U.S. war machine and a subservient Irish government that allowed U.S. military planes loaded with troops and weapons to land at Shannon Airport. The planes, troops and weapons were headed to and from places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and other operations of U.S. wars (at that time the U.S. was involved in hostilities in 14 countries). This was in blatant violation of Irish neutrality, not to mention international law.
On St. Patrick’s Day of that year, in the early morning, with the blessing, support and encouragement of VFP Ireland, Ken and I crawled under the outermost fence and then cut through the inner fence and barbed wire and 82-year-old Major Ken and I crawled through the ruptured fence and walked onto the tarmac of Shannon airport. We headed toward three American planes parked on the far end of the tarmac. Our purpose was, if not to rid Ireland of the snakes, then to confront and expose the U.S. military that were poisoning Irish neutrality as they landed transport planes at Shannon. We carried a banner, “U.S. Military Veterans Say: Respect Irish Neutrality: U.S. War Machine Out of Shannon!”
After about 20 minutes on the tarmac, the Irish Garda (police) arrived and we were civilly arrested (no handcuffs) and subsequently spent that night in jail and the next 13 days in Limerick prison on remand. Our passports were taken by the authorities under the pretext that if we left Ireland we might not come back for trial and so we spent the next eight-and-a-half months in Ireland before being allowed to leave with our returned passports.
“Two elderly U.S. veterans” arrested for protesting military use of Shannon in violation of Irish neutrality became newsworthy and we made the most of it. Our pictures were in the papers, on TV and we did several radio interviews. The public, the vast majority of whom support Irish neutrality, loved it.
As it turned out we went all over Ireland, much of that on long walks we called “Boots on the Ground for Freedom.” We spoke about the importance of Irish neutrality and the destruction the U.S. military was causing not only to life, but also to the environment. Ken loved walking and kept a walking discipline all his life. We walked an average of 15 kilometers daily, so it fit right in. Ken and I both love animals but Ken is especially fond of dogs and missed his dog Wiley back home in the New Mexico high desert. Every time we came upon someone walking their dog, Ken, without fail, would have to stop and tell the owner what a beautiful dog that was and give the dog one of the treats he always carried.
We also dropped huge banners from bridges across highways and in Dublin. All this with enthusiastic support from the Irish public and a good number of Irish politicians in the Dáil Eireann and the Seanad.
Ad placed in Irish papers by Clare Daly and Mick Wallace
There was a huge campaign both in Ireland and in the U.S. to get us home. As December approached it became “Let them go home for Christmas.” We both had fallen in love with Ireland and with the people, their heartfelt hospitality, warmth, intelligence, and spirit. We established lasting friendships and mutual respect with people in the Irish antiwar, pro-neutrality movement and with large segments of the Irish public. People were happy to give us shelter and we became very close with many. Then Members of the European Parliament Clare Daly and Mick Wallace became close friends and worked ceaselessly helping us get our passports back so we could go home.
When we spoke publicly or were interviewed, we were not shy about calling out what U.S. troops and their weapons were doing to women, children and families in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the environment, and our Irish audiences were receptive. Being U.S. veterans who spoke truthfully and took a stand for Irish neutrality endeared us to the Irish, I believe. Over a million children have died or been killed because of U.S. warmaking. As fathers, veterans, and human beings, Ken and I felt the death of even one child, let alone multiple thousands, is not worth war. Nothing is. There was no moral, ethical, or legal excuse for U.S. wars of aggression, nor for a corrupt and subservient Irish government that was betraying precious Irish neutrality by allowing U.S. military planes and troops to transport through Shannon.
We also knew the Irish Air Navigation Order (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) prohibits the transport of weapons of war without an exemption. Of course, the U.S. government guaranteed that none of the thousands of U.S. planes since 2001 carrying soldiers (and prisoners bound for Guantánamo on CIA rendition flights) had any weapons (or prisoners) on board.
As a senior member of the Garda testified at our trial in 2022, to his knowledge not one of the thousands of U.S. military transports landing at Shannon had ever been searched for weapons!
Ken said during an interview in Limerick, “The U.S. military is essentially using Shannon Airport as a U.S. base and the result of that is death and destruction throughout the Middle East and North Africa. I find it particularly heart-rending that some of this material goes to support the Saudi attacks in Yemen where there are over a million people on the verge of starvation, and after what Ireland has been through in the 19th century in terms of starvation, I find it particularly tragic, bitterly ironic that Ireland should be complicit in the starvation of over a million people.”
Some of Ken’s outstanding VFP manifestations have been participation in the 2009 Gaza Freedom March; the December 2010 mass arrests at the White House, followed by participation in the March 2011 mass arrests at the Capitol with VFP and IVAW, and the March 2011 arrests at the Free Bradley Manning protest at Quantico, Virginia. He was a participant in the 2011 Freedom Flotilla, attempting to break the illegal blockade of Gaza, and was arrested in Athens, Greece, hunger striking at the U.S. Embassy protesting the arrest of the captain of the U.S. Boat to Gaza; Ken was an essential part of the VFP Nuclear Abolition Working Group and co-authored the excellent VFP Nuclear Posture Review. In 2023 he was arrested protesting drone warfare at Holloman AFB in New Mexico. He was a dedicated editor of Peace & Planet News from the paper and the website’s beginning.
Ken with Jay Wenk at the 2015 Peoples’ Climate March in New York City. Photo: Ellen Davidson
On a personal note, I will never forget the night, Ken, WWII infantry veteran, Jay Wenk, and myself spent behind bars in New York City’s Manhattan Detention Complex, commonly known as “the Tombs.” We had been arrested with others for standing for our right as veterans to be at the NYC Veterans Memorial at whatever hour. Ken, Jay, and I were put in the same cell together because we were older vets. But after we were booked and sent downstairs, the cops on duty that night seemed to be in sympathy with us and they shared some cookies they were munching on before we got locked in our cell. There were about 12 of us originally led into the jail before booking. “What the fuck you guys doing arresting veterans?” the desk sergeant yelled to the arresting officers as we were led in in handcuffs. Ken and Jay, both with great sense of humor just naturally without effort charmed the cops in the Tombs, a place that is notorious for its dungeon-like quality and for guards that it was wise not to mess with. Ken had a beautiful baritone voice, and Jay and I sang with him as we passed the night in the cell. At one point getting on toward morning a black female guard joined us in singing “Down by the Riverside (Ain’t Gonna Study War No More).”
Ken with Chuck Searcy, the author, and Ellen Davidson, singing at an anti-base protest on Jeju Island in South Korea.
What was always outstanding about Ken Mayers was the example he set for many in VFP of dedication to our antiwar mission and for the kindness, nonviolence and respect with which he treated everyone, friend or foe.
When asked, at age 87, why he remains active year after year after year, Ken replied, “I get asked this question a lot, and I have several answers. I do it in part simply because I can. I do it in hope of helping create a better world for my children and grandchildren to inhabit. I do it because, as a former instrument of terrible national policies, I need to make amends. But when asked how I can keep doing it after 58 years of frustrating inability to make much of a difference, I fall back on two factors: 1) I love the work and I love the people I’m working with; and 2) the world is a little less depressing when you are trying to make things a little better.”
Ken Mayers was without exaggeration one of the most admired, loved, and respected people, not only in VFP but among many in the peace movement and beyond. I still miss him dearly.
Tarak Kauff is the editor-in-chief of Peace and Planet News. He was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962 and is a lifetime member and former board member of Veterans For Peace. He is a longtime activist for peace, justice, and the environment.
